Getting Rid of Those Rounded Corners in Windows 11
Want to give your Windows 11 a more angular vibe? It’s surprisingly simple, but like most tweaks in Windows, this one took a bit of searching to nail down. It’s almost like Microsoft wants to keep these settings a secret.
Diving into System Properties
Opening System Properties isn’t a “just right-click and go” situation anymore. Instead, right-click on ‘This PC’ from your desktop or File Explorer, then go for ‘Properties’. You’ll then need to click ‘Advanced system settings’ on the left. If you’re in a hurry (and who isn’t?), hit Win + R, type in SystemPropertiesAdvanced, and smash Enter. Much faster.
Finding Performance Options
Once you’re in there, look for the ‘Performance’ section and click the ‘Settings’ button. This opens up the Performance Options window, which is kind of where the magic happens. Of course, there’s also a way to dive straight into this with the command line: SystemPropertiesPerformance. If you’re feeling adventurous, you could even edit some registry settings at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize, but only if you know what you’re doing. Messing with the registry can be a bit risky.
Choosing “Best Performance” Option
The quickest fix for those rounded corners is to just check ‘Adjust for best performance’. This will kill off many visual effects, including the rounded edges. If you’re up for a more tailored approach, you can uncheck things like:
- Use visual styles on windows and buttons
- Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing
- Fade or slide menus into view
- Show shadows under windows
- Show translucent selection rectangle
Fine-Tuning Visual Effects
Not wanting to go all out and turn off everything? You can pick and choose what to disable instead. Maybe turn off the fancy animations but keep the smooth scrolling. Use the Performance Options window for that or get into the registry if you’re feeling bold. Setting EnableTransparency to 0 will cut the transparency effects.
Applying Your Changes
Once you’ve made your selections, hit ‘Apply’ and ‘OK’. Changes usually take effect right away, but sometimes it might need a restart—or even two—before everything looks the way it should. If you’re impatient, you can refresh things without a restart by killing the Windows Explorer process with:
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe && start explorer.exe
Just remember, a full reboot might still be necessary for some effects to show up properly.
Heads up: This all seems pretty straightforward, but remember, each system has its quirks. Some changes might not stick, and there are probably plenty of folks who’ve tinkered with their settings and ended up with visual glitches. Proceed with caution and a dose of patience. If something doesn’t work right off the bat, giving it a few tries usually does the trick.
Changed your mind? No worries. Reverting back to the default look is just as easy. Go back to the Performance Options and select ‘Let Windows choose what’s best for my computer’ or re-enable specific effects. Or you can reset transparency in PowerShell with:
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\Personalize" -Name "EnableTransparency" -Value 1
This flexibility turns Windows into your customization playground.
And just to ease any worries—none of this is going to damage your system. These are just visual tweaks. Disabling them won’t lead to data loss or any system instability, even though it might feel risky sometimes. Just follow the steps, and you’ll be sporting sharp corners in no time.