How to bring back original Start menu on Windows 11

If you don't like the new Start menu, it's still possible to restore the original design with these steps.

By Mauro Huculak (@Pureinfotech) , Windows How-To Expert and IT Specialist with 22 years of experience.

November 4, 2025

2025-11-04T10:25:20-05:00

To restore the original Windows 11 Start menu, open Command Prompt (admin), navigate to the ViveTool folder, and run the vivetool /disable /id:47205210 command.

On Windows 11, you restore the previous version of the Start menu, and in this guide, I’ll show you the steps to complete this configuration.

Microsoft is officially rolling out the new Start menu design for Windows 11 with the release of the November 2025 Security Update available through the Stable Channel. The new menu combines the “Pinned” and “Recommended” sections with the “All” menu into a single scrollable experience that automatically adapts to screen size.

In addition, you can change the view of the “All” section with three options, including category, grid, and list. Furthermore, this new design finally allows you to remove the “Recommended” section.

Although this menu is meant to improve the experience over the previous design, if you don’t like the new Start menu, you can still disable it manually using ViveTool.

In this guide, I’ll outline the steps to disable the menu on Windows 11 25H2 and 24H2.

Warning: While this command works at the time of writing, the new Start menu will eventually be permanently part of the operating system, making it impossible to deactivate. These steps are meant as a temporary solution.

Restore the original Start menu design on Windows 11

To bring back the original Start menu for Windows 11, follow these steps:

Open the GitHub website.
Download the ViveTool-vx.x.x.zip file to restore the new Start menu design.
Double-click the zip folder to open it with File Explorer.
Click the Extract all button.
Click the Extract button.
Copy the path to the folder.
Open Start.
Search for Command Prompt, right-click the top result, and select the Run as administrator option.
Type the following command to navigate to the ViveTool folder and press Enter:
```
cd c:\folder\path\ViveTool-v0.x.x
```
In the command, remember to change the path to the folder with your path.
Type the following command to disable the Start menu design and press Enter:
```
vivetool /disable /id:47205210
```
Restart the computer.

Once you complete the steps, the system will restore the original Start menu on Windows 11.