W11 users really hate the "Recommended" section from Start Menu, but there's no way in 21H2 to remove it. 22H2 EDU & Enterprise editions get a new GPO to hide the section, but nothing for Home or Pro users. The normal answer is to use valinet's ExplorerPatcher on GitHub.
While ExplorerPatcher is great for customizing W11 UI, it's a 3rd-party program.
SM03 inadvertently gave me another solution when he tested the GPO by switching Windows SKU's on his system. Start Menu only follows the GPO when Windows is reported as EDU or Enterprise. After confirming with Michael Niehaus' article on Virtual SKUs, I realized it was a trivial hack.
This workaround is very clean, but only works for 22H2 Pro editions (Professional, Professional Workstation). Sorry, no Home.
Users must be members of the Administrators group.
When users logon, Windows will run an elevated task to kill Start Menu, switch the SKU to ProEDU, restart Start Menu and switch back. There's a 2-3 second delay while Start Menu doesn't show any change. There is no need to update Settings, as the script does everything.
Install on a live system:
1. Extract the ZIP file.
2. Copy HideRecommended.ps1 & RunHide.vbs to C:\Scripts. If you change the folder path, edit RunHide.vbs & Schedule_RunHide.cmd.
3. Run Schedule_RunHide.cmd (once) to create a logon task.
4. If you want it changed now, run "powershell -ep bypass -file HideRecommended.ps1" as Administrator.
Install in Post-Setup:
1. Extract the ZIP file.
2. Create "sources\$OEM$\$1\Scripts" in the ISO folder. This maps to C:\Scripts. If you change the folder path, edit RunHide.vbs &
3. Add Schedule_RunHide.cmd to Post-Setup.
DO NOT ASK NUHI TO SUPPORT THIS. It's a safe hack, but not MS-supported.
While ExplorerPatcher is great for customizing W11 UI, it's a 3rd-party program.
SM03 inadvertently gave me another solution when he tested the GPO by switching Windows SKU's on his system. Start Menu only follows the GPO when Windows is reported as EDU or Enterprise. After confirming with Michael Niehaus' article on Virtual SKUs, I realized it was a trivial hack.
This workaround is very clean, but only works for 22H2 Pro editions (Professional, Professional Workstation). Sorry, no Home.
Users must be members of the Administrators group.
When users logon, Windows will run an elevated task to kill Start Menu, switch the SKU to ProEDU, restart Start Menu and switch back. There's a 2-3 second delay while Start Menu doesn't show any change. There is no need to update Settings, as the script does everything.
Install on a live system:
1. Extract the ZIP file.
2. Copy HideRecommended.ps1 & RunHide.vbs to C:\Scripts. If you change the folder path, edit RunHide.vbs & Schedule_RunHide.cmd.
3. Run Schedule_RunHide.cmd (once) to create a logon task.
4. If you want it changed now, run "powershell -ep bypass -file HideRecommended.ps1" as Administrator.
Install in Post-Setup:
1. Extract the ZIP file.
2. Create "sources\$OEM$\$1\Scripts" in the ISO folder. This maps to C:\Scripts. If you change the folder path, edit RunHide.vbs &
Schedule_RunHide.cmd
3. Copy both RunHide.vbs & Schedule_RunHide.cmd to the folder.3. Add Schedule_RunHide.cmd to Post-Setup.
DO NOT ASK NUHI TO SUPPORT THIS. It's a safe hack, but not MS-supported.
- KMS doesn't support Home editions
- The script only works for Pro SKU's, but not Pro N. Stop using N editions.
- There's a short window while we're the "wrong" SKU, but typically not long enough to impact other features/services which check the SKU.
- Need a VBS wrapper to invisibly run PowerShell. Otherwise you see a flashing window.
- Since we're using SKU detection, this hack won't be broken by applying CU's.
- If you don't use More Pins, Start Menu leaves half the screen empty.
- The script only works for Pro SKU's, but not Pro N. Stop using N editions.
- There's a short window while we're the "wrong" SKU, but typically not long enough to impact other features/services which check the SKU.
- Need a VBS wrapper to invisibly run PowerShell. Otherwise you see a flashing window.
- Since we're using SKU detection, this hack won't be broken by applying CU's.
- If you don't use More Pins, Start Menu leaves half the screen empty.