START menu has changed suddenly -- how do I revert this change?

Question

Hello, all.

For some reason, the day after I decide to create my own Start Menu categories, Windows has decided to make all apps visible on the first brush of my Start key.

I really STRONGLY dislike this and want my old Start Menu back. It's included a lot of redundant categories (which I already made folders for) which seem to exclusively include the apps I intentionally did not put in my selective folders. It's taking up a lot of space and the pinned folders I've actually categorized are extremely small and difficult to click on.

These are my settings and it changes nothing. The categories I'm being shown are, to their credit, not available categories to turn off.

I am aggressive about wishing I could tuck 'all' back behind a button and get my CHOSEN PINNED FOLDERS on my Start Menu.

I do not want to view all as Category, Grid, or List; I want to view all when I choose to view all.

Does anybody know what version of Windows I'd need to rollback to and how I would do that to get the old Start menu back? I'd very much prefer to avoid installing third party software that changes the appearance of the menu because it slows my PC down.

Here is my system info.

Device name PII removed

Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5800XT 8-Core Processor (3.80 GHz)

Installed RAM 32.0 GB

Device ID PII removed

Product ID PII removed

System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Pen and touch Pen support

Edition Windows 11 Home

Version 25H2

Installed on ‎7/‎11/‎2025

OS build 26200.7922

Experience Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.26100.300.0

If I cannot get my old Start Menu back, instructions on how to uninstall Windows and install Linux would be appreciated, because this is truly the final straw weighing down this camel's back with pounds and pounds of issues, not the least of them being ethical complaints over Microsoft's use of AI and the way they handled the pushback on that issue. Their employees deserve better, their users deserve better, and the change from 'My PC' to 'This PC' was around the time I started resenting pressing my power button.

Answer 1

Hello Arboretum, welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

I understand your situation, and I'm sorry for your frustration. Don't worry though, many users wanted the same thing and have worked out fixes.

First method - Registry command:

Open Command Prompt as Administrator and run:

reg add "HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer" /v NoStartMenuMorePrograms /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f && taskkill /f /im explorer.exe && start explorer.exe

(change 1 to 0 if you want to revert)

Then restart your PC. After that, you can switch to Grid or List view from the "View" dropdown in Start Menu.

That said, from what other users have reported, this method might only remove the Category option itself—the Start Menu might still look oversized with blank spaces. In that case, you can try the ViVeTool to fully reverts to old Start Menu (it's only a portable tool and doesn't install on your computer).

Second method - ViVeTool:

1. Download ViVeTool from https://github.com/thebookisclosed/ViVe/releases
2. Extract it somewhere like C:\ViVeTool
3. Open Command Prompt as Administrator
4. Navigate to the folder: cd C:\ViVeTool
5. Run: vivetool /disable /id:47205210
6. Restart your PC

This should bring back the compact old Start Menu with the separate All apps button.

Let me know how it goes!

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Answer 2

There is no option to turn it off - that is a Microsoft UI change.