NoRoundCorners11

When Microsoft’s latest version of its flagship operating system launched, many of the users accustomed to its previous generations found that some parts of the newest Fluent Design language strayed further away from the minimalist Metro style introduced in Windows 8, which featured bold, opaque colors alongside the signature tile system that stood out at the time. One change that can be found across the user interfaces concerns the rounded nature of the application window corners, an element that can be altered by those who prefer Windows 10’s sharper version through a neat utility known as NoRoundCorners11.

Similar to how Windows 8’s full screen start menu made it hard for many users to make the transition from the 7^th version, the open-source community took it upon itself to provide the option to switch to a more familiar, dual-pane layout thanks to a program called Open-Shell. This time around, while more popular pieces of software such as Mica For Everyone and Explorer Patcher include the same type of functionality in their settings, those who are looking for a more lightweight solution focused on this single problem will find great use in the app at hand.

Starting up the utility instantly applies the change throughout Windows Explorer and launches the background process required for maintaining the sharp corners on all currently running apps. In order to avoid having to manually double-click the executable at every log-in interval, users can right-click on its dedicated system tray icon and enable the option that lets it start automatically on boot.

Those who want to revert to the default window shape can simply stop its process through the aforementioned context menu, which can come in handy when having to take screenshots. Finally, while the app’s portable form factor can be useful for setups when re-installing Windows is done frequently, to save time and avoid having to go through various installation wizards, reverting to rounded corners may require restarting certain programs, which can be a disadvantage, depending on your workflow.

Whether you dislike the overall theme of Windows’ latest iteration, or you simply wish to keep the sharper window margins that act as a visual cue when resizing apps, NoRoundCorners11 may be the right tool for you, given its lightweight memory footprint and portable form factor focused on simplicity.