This is not a war; it is a trade. The classic menu gives you everything in one click and charges you a long list to look at. The Windows 11 menu gives you a short, clean list and charges you a second click for everything else. Here is both sides of the bill, itemised, so the choice is yours — and not a comment section's.
Comparisons of these two menus usually skip the other side's real points. The classic menu's fans forget how long it gets on a loaded PC; the compact menu's defenders forget that the hidden entries are usually the programs you chose to install. Read both columns below like an invoice, then decide with your own work in mind.
Every entry your programs added sits in the first menu: archive tools like 7-Zip and WinRAR, Git, your editor, your antivirus scan. No second click, no waiting for a second menu to load, and text labels for everything instead of memorising which icon in the top row means rename. For work that lives in right click menus, this is the whole argument, and it is a strong one.
If you arrived from Windows 10 or earlier, your hands already know where everything is. There is also a quieter benefit for anyone who supports family or colleagues: one consistent, familiar menu means instructions match what is on the screen, and a screenshot from any older guide still makes sense.
The compact menu's short list is genuinely easier to scan, its top icon row for cut, copy, rename, share and delete is quick once learned, and its generous spacing is kinder on touch screens. Against that, the classic menu on a PC with many installed programs can run to a long, dense column that you scan top to bottom. Tidy is a real value; it is just not the only one.
New Windows apps are designed compact-menu first. Their entries do appear in the classic menu, but the compact menu is the layout Microsoft maintains and improves, while the classic one is frozen legacy. Choosing classic means choosing a finished past over a maintained present — sometimes exactly right, but worth doing knowingly rather than by default.
Keep the compact menu, and hold Shift while right clicking on the occasions you need the full list. Heavy users should switch outright; light users often find the Shift habit is the entire solution and never need to touch a setting at all. The video's tweak and the Shift key are not rivals — they are the same menu at two levels of commitment.
Watch the video to see the classic menu working on a real Windows 11 PC — then decide which side of the trade you live on.
▶ Watch Full VideoFor reaching program entries, yes - one click instead of two, every time. For the few actions in the compact menu's icon row, the new menu can be a touch faster once you learn the icons. It depends which actions your day is made of.
No. Both menus call the same program entries; only the layout and the number of clicks differ. Nothing about your software changes either way.
No - the tweak works at the Explorer shell level, so desktop and folder windows change together. It is one switch for the whole shell, not per window.