These are the options for the version that I have…
EDIT:
I don’t have the latest version, though. 
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Hmm looks like Stardock’s Start11 might offer what I’m looking for. Not free though. If I was going to buy something from Stardock it’d probably be Fences 5. I could then group and label desktop icons by use. Sometimes I download new stuff to work on a specific problem and forget why I needed it.
I never checked before because I haven’t experienced performance issues on my devices, but i just ran a benchmark and got 159k read iops (1000k according to manufacturer) and 53k write iops (900k according to manufacturer). I never tested this before encrypting though, so I don’t have the before and after numbers of my specific drive. This is also while i have multiple applications open and playing a game.
At my job we encrypt all our mobile devices. Windows devices have Bitlocker enabled and Mac devices have Filevault enabled. The Windows devices take a huge hit in performance, while the mac devices do not. Unix-like devices, and the filesystems they use are way more efficient than NTFS. There is likely a performance hit on linux, just not near as bad as Windows.
I completely agree. If you come across something you don’t understand while following the install guide, click the supporting links to read more about it and have a better understanding. I run Arch on my desktop at home, my personal laptop, my workstation at work, my 6 servers and my dual-booted work laptop. It is extremely stable despite what a lot of people say on the internet.
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Start 11 is a good choice also. I think it’s a one time payment. I stay away from subscriptions, even for Office. Actually, I absolutely hate this trend.
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I have Fences 5.
It’s a real game-changer for me.
My desktop is now super organized. 
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Yea I’m tired of the rent-seeking companies. I’m not paying a monthly subscription for something that would work just fine without updates or maintenance. EDIT Nor am I “upgrading” to a new version which does require monthly updates because it has been moved to the cloud. This goes for software AND car features -_-
Start11 looks pretty interesting.
If I didn’t love Open Shell, I might try out Start11.
One feature of Open Shell that I really like is that I can make the taskbar transparent.
(I don’t know if Start11 has that feature.)
EDIT1:
Looks like Start11 has taskbar transparency, but I’m not sure if it allows the Quick Launch bar. 
EDIT2:
Looks like Start11 cannot coexist with the Quick Launch bar. 
You might want to look at https://mpc-qt.github.io or https://www.smplayer.info .
I would say that Arch wouldn’t be a good choice, but for a different reason. Generally somebody who is switching away from Windows 11 is fed up with frequent and pointless changes in the operating system and other common programs. There is a lot of development “churn” in the open source world too, some of it regressive in my opinion, and also change just for the sake of change. Arch is as stable as any other Linux distro, but only if “stable” is defined as “not crashing”. But if stability in the sense of “not changing” is desired then Arch would definitely not be a good choice, and instead you might want to look for a distro based on Debian Stable or Ubuntu LTS.
Open shell is a lifesaver.
Also 7+ Taskbar Tweaker - Ramen Software, in addition to the usual shutup10, etc.
I will definitely check those before my next fresh installation. Thanks for the tips.
If only it were less buggy. Openshell takes about twice the time to open of the already slow Win11 default start menu, and with automatically hiding taskbar (I have a OLED screen, so no static UI elements) it sometimes bugs and does not open, or the start menu opens but the taskbar does not 
The default menu does not have these issues, but is unusable in every other regard.
From a UI point of view, OpenShell with Fluent Metro UI is pretty much perfect for me.
Luckily we got Powertoys Run, too, which is blazingly fast and has a hugely better search than both Win11 Start Menu and OpenShell Menu.
The taskbar in Win11 is at a really good point imo, and as it is now a huge upgrade over 10. The improved quick settings are a gamechanger for someone using a lot of Bluetooth devices, and the new volume mixer is finally making the feature easy to reach (the weird separate pop-up window in 10 and earlier was UX crap).
Win11 in general brought a lot of big UI improvements. The “I want my computer to remain unchanged” crowd is pretty displeased, but almost everything they touched got objectively hugely better, with one obnoxious exception - the start menu. That one sucks and I have no idea who signed this abomination off.
Insufficient hardware performance? Both are essentially instant on all of my windows boxes including my laptop, and open shell menu faster than the default one.
I hate the Windows 11 taskbar, it somehow manages to be more cluttered, less information dense, and have less information available all at once.
As for volume from the taskbar, I don’t really ever adjust it much from there, I just have some keybinds for volume.
Nah, Ryzen 6850U with 32 GB LPDDR5, installed on a 980 Pro. The system got plenty of performance, the start menus have some noticeable lag though. Same on my gaming desktop, but that one is currently out of order because the MoBo fried 
For overall volume I do the same, never adjust it via GUI. Half of my keyboards got a rotary encoder for that, the rest has keybinds. Some programs are simply way too loud compared to others without in-program-volume-controls, and for that the mixer in a readily available place is super convenient.
I use a freeware program called 3RVX to adjust the volume on my PCs.
It allows me to set up key bindings of my choice, though I still adjust the volume the traditional way as well. 
Website says: 7+ Taskbar Tweaker doesn’t support the Windows 11 taskbar, and probably never will.
Dang
Yeah, M$ made it a lot harder to fix win11 because they want to push their new terrible UX on everyone. If I could get the old taskbar I might use Win11 enterprise version with all the spying etc disabled by group policy, but with the new taskbar I can just be more productive with xfce instead.
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I was not aware of Powertoys Run, I’ll have to read up on it. I’ve been using Voidtools Everything.
I would also like to be able to position my W11 taskbar at the top of the screen. That’s been my default position for years.
I found a regedit workaround for it, but the gui isn’t designed for that position so it’s really wonky and terrible. I quickly reverted the change.
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Amazing program that I couldn’t live (as happily) without.
(I also had not heard of Powertoys Run.)
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How do people even use Windows without PowerToys
The tiling feature is absolutely essential for me. So is PT Run. Image resize, OCR screenshots and a few others are super handy too.
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How?
- Voidtools Everything picks up the slack for the search feature.
- Keyboard shortcuts to control window placement (Win + arrow keys)
- keyboard shortcuts to switch desktops (Ctrl+Win + Left/Right arrow keys)
- strategically pinned programs on start menu
- desktop app shortcuts organized by usage
What is this image resize feature you speak of?