How To Change Windows 10 Home Screen

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Chapter i. Desktop & Start Menu

These days, the graphic user interface (the colorful globe of icons, windows, and menus) is standard. Mac, Windows, Chrome Os, Linux—every operating organisation is fundamentally the same, which is to say a very long way from the lines of typed commands that divers the primeval computers.

Windows 10 restores the desktop to its traditional importance, following a weird three-twelvemonth detour into "what the heck" land known as Windows viii. The desktop is once once again your only habitation base, your single starting point. It's the view that greets yous when the estimator turns on, and it offers all the tools you need to manage and organize your files.

Herewith: a grand bout of the country of the art in computer desktops—the 1 in Windows 10.

The Lock Screen

When you turn on a Windows 10 auto, you know right away that you're not in Kansas anymore. The first matter you see is a colorful curtain that'south been drawn over the computer'due south globe. Information technology's the Lock screen (Figure 1-1).

The Lock screen serves the same purpose it does on a phone: Information technology gives a quick glance at the fourth dimension, the date, your WiFi signal strength, the atmospheric condition, and (on laptops and tablets) your battery charge. As you download and install new apps, they can add informational tidbits to this Lock screen, besides.

The point is that sometimes y'all don't really need to wake the machine up. You just want to know what time it is.

The Lock screen can also give you instant access to your Camera and Skype apps (Camera and Skype). You lot might want to accept a picture or reply a phone call without having to go through the red tape of fully logging in.

Figure 1-1. You can control which apps are allowed to add data to the Lock screen in Settings (similar the weather report shown hither). You're not stuck with the Lock screen photo as Mother Microsoft has installed information technology, either. You tin change the picture, if y'all like, or you tin can eliminate information technology birthday. Chapter 4 has the details.

When you do desire to get by the Lock screen to log in, at that place'south nothing to information technology. About anything you exercise that says, "I'm hither!" works:

• Touchscreen : Swipe a finger upwardly. (Swipe downwardly to spring into Photographic camera mode.)

• Mouse : Click anywhere. Or turn the mouse cycle.

• Keyboard : Press whatsoever fundamental.

The Lock screen slides up and out of the style, revealing the Login screen (Figure 1-2, tiptop).

Tip

You lot can change the photo background of the Lock screen, make it a slideshow, or fiddle with which data appears here; see Customizing the Lock Screen. You can fifty-fifty eliminate the Lock screen altogether—after all, it'due south an extra click every fourth dimension you log in. For step-past-step instructions, meet "Eliminating the Windows x Lock Screen," a free downloadable PDF appendix on this volume's "Missing CD" page at www.missingmanuals.com.

The Login Screen

As in any modern operating arrangement, you have your own account in Windows. It'due south your globe of files, settings, and preferences. So the second affair y'all run into in Windows 10 is the Login screen. Here, at lower left, yous see the proper name and photo for each person who has an account on this machine (Figure 1-2). Choose yours.

This is too where you're supposed to log in—to evidence that you're you. But logging in no longer has to mean typing a countersign . I of Windows 10'due south principal goals is to embrace touchscreens, and typing is a hurting on tablets.

Effigy i-2. Lower left: If your machine has more than one account ready up, tap or click your icon to sign in. Top right: Typing is so 2009! In Windows 10, yous can log into your business relationship using whatever of several more touchscreen-friendly methods, like drawing three predetermined lines on a photograph.

Therefore, you lot tin log in using any of these techniques:

• Simply expect at your screen. On laptops or tablets with Intel's RealSense infrared cameras, facial recognition logs you in.

• Swipe your finger across the fingerprint reader, if your computer has one.

• Put your center up to the iris reader, if your car is so equipped.

• Draw three lines, taps, or circles on a photo you've selected (Figure 1-ii, peak).

• Blazon in a PIN you've memorized.

• Type a traditional countersign.

• Skip the security birthday. Jump directly to the desktop when you turn on the machine.

Run across Chapter 19 for instructions on setting each of these up.

The Desktop

Once you've gotten past the security barrier, you finally wind up at the home base of Windows: the desktop. See Figure 1-iii for a refresher course.

You can, and should, brand the desktop look like any you want. You tin modify its background pic or color scheme; you can make the text larger; you tin clutter upward the whole thing with icons you lot use a lot. Chapter four is a crash course in desktop interior decoration.

Figure one-three. The desktop returns in Windows 10 equally everybody'due south starting place. Information technology's once again the first matter you meet after you log in. It has a shiny, clean, new await, but the time-honored landmarks—Start menu, taskbar, organisation tray—are just where they've always been.

Meet the Start Menu

Windows is composed of 50 million lines of computer code, scattered across your hard bulldoze in thousands of files. The vast majority of them are not for y'all; they're support files, there for behind-the-scenes use by Windows and your applications. They may besides bear a sticker reading, "No user-serviceable parts inside."

That's why the Commencement bill of fare is so of import (Effigy 1-4). It lists every useful piece of software on your computer, including commands, programs, and files. Merely about everything you do on your PC begins—or tin can begin—with your Start carte.

In Windows ten, as you've probably noticed, the give-and-take "Starting time" doesn't actually appear on the Outset menu, equally information technology did for years; at present the Kickoff menu is only a foursquare push button in the lower-left corner of your screen, bearing the Windows logo ( ). But information technology'due south still chosen the Kickoff menu, and information technology'southward still the gateway to everything on the PC.

If y'all're the type who bills past the hour, yous tin open the Start menu (Figure 1-three, lower left) by clicking it with the mouse. If you lot feel that life'southward also brusque, nonetheless, tap the key on the keyboard instead, or the button if it's a tablet.

Actually, truly: Learn this . Tap to open the Outset carte du jour (or to shut it!).

The Outset menu (Figure 1-four) is split into ii columns. For convenience, let'south call them the left side and the right side.

Figure i-4. Hither it is, the single biggest change in Windows 10: the new, hybrid Offset card. The left side gives you direct access to apps you lot apply frequently, or that you've installed recently, as well as important commands and places like Power and "All apps." The right side is yours to customize.

Note

If your computer is a tablet, and it has no physical keyboard at all, then it may beginning upward in Windows 10'due south new Tablet mode . In this mode, the right side of the Start menu fills the entire screen, and the left side doesn't appear unless you tap the in the pinnacle-left corner. For details on Tablet mode, run into Chapter thirteen.

Start Menu: The Left Side

The almost amazing thing about the Windows 10 Get-go menu is that Windows x has a Beginning menu—something that's been missing since Windows 7. The left side, or something similar it, has been with Windows from the beginning. The right side is a pared-back version of the Beginning screen that distinguished Windows 8.

The left side may look like the Get-go menu that'southward been in Windows from the beginning (except during that one unfortunate three-year Windows 8 phase). But there's a big divergence: In Windows ten, you lot tin't use it to listing your own favorite programs, folders, and files. (That's what the correct side is for.) The left side is meant to be managed and run entirely by Windows itself.

The left side has five sections, described hither from acme to bottom:

[Your name]

See your account name and picture in the upper-left corner of the Start bill of fare (Effigy i-5)?

Effigy ane-5. Your account icon isn't just an icon; it'south also a popular-up menu. Click it to see the "Sign out" and "Lock" commands, as well as a shortcut to your account settings.

That's not but helpful data. The picture is also a pop-upward carte. And its commands all take to do with switching from one business relationship to another. (In Windows' accounts feature, each person who uses this PC gets to see her own desktop moving picture, email business relationship, files, and so on. See Chapter nineteen.) Here'southward what they exercise.

Tip

Some keystrokes from previous Windows versions are still around. For example, you can still press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to summon the three commands described here: "Lock," "Switch user," and "Sign out"—plus a bonus link for the Task Managing director (Exiting Programs).

• Modify account settings takes you directly to the Settings→Account screen, where yous tin can change your account film, password, login method, and other details of your business relationship—and you tin can create accounts for other family members.

• Lock . This command takes you back to the Lock screen described at the starting time of this chapter. In essence, it throws a sheet of inch-thick steel over everything you were doing, hiding your screen from view. This is an platonic mode to protect your PC from nosy people who happen to wander by your desk-bound while you're abroad getting java or luncheon.

  Whatsoever you lot had running remains open behind the scenes. When you log in again, you'll discover all your open programs and documents exactly every bit y'all left them.

• Sign out . When you choose "Sign out," Windows closes all your open programs and documents (giving you an opportunity to relieve any unsaved documents start). It and so presents a new Login screen so that somebody else can log in.

Virtually Used

Beneath your name icon, you become a list of the programs that Windows sees you lot using a lot. Windows computes this listing automatically and continuously. It's a really keen characteristic, considering, well, if you lot've been using something a lot recently, y'all'll probably utilize it a lot more still, and at present you lot don't have to burrow around looking for information technology.

On the other hand, if y'all'd rather not have Windows track what you're doing, y'all tin can get rid of this list, or just certain items on information technology; run across the box beneath.

If you run into a submenu arrow (>) adjacent to a programme'due south name in the Beginning menu, congrats. You've just found a leap listing , a characteristic that gives you quick access to documents you've opened recently. See Bound Lists in the Taskbar for details on creating, deleting, and working with jump lists.

Tip

So how does Windows decide what to put into the "Most used" list? It's an algorithm, Microsoft says, one that it intends to keep refining to make the list more than useful. One matter is for certain, though: Whatever app yous've put onto the correct side of the Start bill of fare doesn't appear in the "Well-nigh used" list. Microsoft figures you don't need to see its proper name twice.

Recently Added

The centre section of the left side shows one item: any app y'all've near recently downloaded or installed. Information technology'due south surprisingly handy, specially for novices, who oft download something from the Cyberspace and and so can't find where it landed.

If you've installed more than than ane new app recently, open the "All apps" list described beneath; the little "New" indicators show you which are the recent arrivals.

Tip

It probably goes without saying, but you can hide the "Recently added" section if you like. Open the Get-go carte du jour; cull Settings→Personalization→Commencement; turn off "Bear witness recently added apps." Close Settings.

Important Places

In full general, the bottom of the left side is devoted to listing of import places on the computer. On a shiny new PC, the list includes these:

• File Explorer . This "app" is the standard desktop window, showing the contents of your drives and folders (Chapter 2).

• Settings . Yeah, adjusting the settings and preferences of your PC is most 6 steps quicker at present, since Settings is listed right here in the Start carte. Chapter 7 covers Settings in absurd detail.

• Power . Difficult though it may be to believe, there may come a day when you want to shut down or restart your computer. See Change the color.

• All apps opens the complete master list of all your programs, as described below.

What's great, though, is that you can add other of import folders to this list, post-obit the steps shown in Figure ane-6. These are some of your options:

• Documents : This command opens up your Documents folder, a very important folder indeed. It'southward designed to store just about all the work you practice on your PC—everything except music, pictures, and videos, which get folders of their ain.

  Of class, you're welcome to file your documents anywhere on the hard drive, but most programs propose depositing newly created documents into the Documents folder. That principle makes navigation easy. You never have to wonder where you filed something, since all your stuff is sitting right there in Documents.

  Note

  The Documents folder actually sits in the This PC Local Disk (C:) Users [ Your Name] folder.

  If you lot study that path advisedly, it should get clear that what's in Documents when yous log in isn't the same matter other people volition encounter when they log in. That is, each business relationship holder (Chapter xix) has a different Documents binder, whose contents switch according to who's logged in.

• Downloads . For decades, computer novices have been baffled: They download something from the web but and then can't notice where information technology went. Now you'll know. Out of the box, Windows puts your downloaded files into this Downloads binder (which is within your Personal folder). It makes perfect sense to add this particular to your Starting time bill of fare so you accept quick admission to information technology.

  

  Figure 1-6. You lot tin add other of import folders to your First carte du jour. Choose →Settings. In the Settings window (elevation correct), choose Personalization. On the side by side screen, click Commencement. Finally, click "Choose which folders appear on Start" (middle). Up pops a list of items like File Explorer, Settings, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos, HomeGroup, and Network, then that you can plow on or off the ones you lot like (bottom).

• Music, Pictures, Videos . Microsoft assumes (correctly) that almost people these days utilize their home computers for managing digital music, photos, and video collections. As you can probably gauge, the Music, Pictures, and Videos folders are intended to house them—and these Start menu commands are quick ways to open them.

  In fact, whatever software came with your phone, digital camera, or MP3 player probably dumps your photos into, and sucks your music files out of, these folders automatically. You'll find much more on photos and music in Affiliate 8.

• HomeGroup is Microsoft's proper noun for an easy file-sharing system. It lets you see what'due south on other computers on your home network, and then that you can shove folders and files back and along without running all over the business firm with a wink drive. This command opens the HomeGroup window (HomeGroups).

• Network opens (what else?) the Network folder, where yous can see a map of your home or office network and make changes to the settings. See Chapter 20.

• Personal folder . Every bit the box below makes clear, Windows keeps all your stuff—your files, folders, electronic mail, pictures, music, bookmarks, even settings and preferences—in one handy, central location: your Personal folder . This binder bears your proper noun, or whatever account proper name you typed when you installed Windows.

  Everyone with an business relationship on your PC has a Personal folder.

  Technically, your Personal folder lurks inside the C:→Users folder. Merely that'south a lot of burrowing when you merely want a view of your empire. That's why your Personal folder can too be installed hither.

All Apps

When you click "All apps" at the bottom of the Start menu, you're shown an of import listing indeed: the master catalog of every program on your computer (Figure i-vii). You tin can leap directly to your word processor, calendar, or favorite game, for example, merely past choosing its proper name in this scrolling list. As a handy bonus, the discussion "New" appears below the name of whatsoever new programs—ones yous've installed just oasis't withal used.

You tin restore the original left-side column by clicking Back (at the bottom of the listing).

Tip

You lot can also open the "All apps" menu with a quick swipe upward anywhere on the left side of the Beginning menu—either with the mouse, trackpad, or your finger on a touchscreen. Try it!

In that location are fifty-fifty more ways to open "All apps" if the Kickoff menu is already open. Click the phrase "All apps," or indicate to it and keep the mouse still for a moment, or printing the , primal (to highlight "All apps"). And so tap the Enter fundamental, the key, or the space bar. Only for keyboard fanatics: Once the "All apps" listing is open, you can also choose anything in information technology without involving the mouse. Merely press the and keys to highlight the item y'all want (or type a few letters of its proper name). Then press Enter to seal the deal.

The "All apps" listing used to be called All Programs, of course, but Microsoft had to go with the lingo of those crazy kids today. Only there is one handy trick in Windows 10 that never existed before: You tin now leap effectually in the list using an alphabetic index, shown at correct in Figure one-7.

Effigy 1-7. Left: When the "All apps" list is visible, your apps are grouped alphabetically. Turns out that those letter headings (A, B, C…) are likewise buttons. When yous click one, Windows offers you a grid of the entire alphabet (right). Click a letter to jump directly to that department of the "All apps" list. If y'all have a lot of programs, this trick can save you a lot of scrolling.

Folders

As you lot'll quickly discover, the "All apps" list doesn't list but programs. It also houses a number of folders . Encounter Effigy 1-8.

Tip

Submenus, as well known as cascading menus, largely take been eliminated from the Start card. Instead, when y'all open up something that contains other things—like a binder listed in the Start menu—you meet its contents listed beneath, indented slightly, as shown at correct in Figure 1-8. Click the folder name again to plummet the sublisting.

Keyboard freaks should notation that you tin also open a highlighted folder in the list by pressing the Enter cardinal (or the cardinal). Close the binder by pressing Enter once again (or the key).

Figure ane-eight. Y'all know when y'all're looking at a folder in the "All apps" list considering a appears to the correct of its proper name (left). Click the folder's name to aggrandize the listing—to see what's hiding inside. (Y'all don't have to click right on the .) When the folder is expanded, the symbol changes to , simply in instance you didn't go the indicate.

• Software-company folders . Some of these folders bear the names of software yous've installed; you might see a folder called, for example, PowerSoft or Logitech. These generally contain programs, uninstallers, instruction manuals, and other related junk.

• Program-group folders . Another fix of folders is designed to trim down the Programs bill of fare by consolidating related programs, similar Games, Accessories (petty single-purpose programs), and Maintenance. Everything in these folders is described in Chapter eight.

How to Customize the Left Side

You can't add anything to the left side yourself, which is a large alter from Windows 7. Nor tin you alter the club of anything here.

You practice, withal, have 3 opportunities to redesign the left side:

• Eliminate the "Most used" list (or certain items in it) . See the box on Getting Rid of the "Most Used" Listing.

• Move something to Start or the taskbar . Suppose there'southward some app—say, Computer—that's listed in "Most used" or the "All apps" list. And you think y'all'd rather have it installed on your taskbar, visible at all times. Or you think it'd piece of work all-time every bit a tile on the right side.

  Turns out you can correct-click its name on the left side. From the shortcut menu, cull "Pin to taskbar" or "Pin to Start." It disappears from the "About used" listing (if that's where it was) and goes where y'all sent it.

  Tip

  If you take a touchscreen, yous tin "right-click" something past holding your finger down on it for i second.

• Add certain Windows folders to the Of import Places list . Y'all do that in Settings, as described on Recently Added.

Tip

How absurd is this? You can uninstall a programme right from the "All apps" list. Just right-click it (or hold your finger downwards on it); from the shortcut carte du jour, choose Uninstall. Confirm in the dialog box that appears. (You can't uninstall apps that came with Windows x this way—only stuff you've added.

Offset Bill of fare: The Right Side

The right side of the Starting time menu is all that remains of the Great Touchscreen Experiment of 2012, during which Microsoft expected every PC on earth to come with a touchscreen. Instead of a Start carte du jour, you got a Start screen , stretching from edge to border of your monitor, displaying your files, folders, and programs as big rectangular tiles.

Unfortunately, the Beginning screen covered up your unabridged screen, blocking whatever y'all were working on. It was horribly space-inefficient—finding a new program you'd downloaded often meant scrolling several screens to the right. And information technology only felt detached from the residual of the Windows globe.

Turns out most people preferred the Outset menu .

There were some nice aspects of the Start-screen idea, though. For 1 thing, it's more than than simply a launcher. It's also a dashboard. Each tile isn't simply a push button that opens the corresponding program; it's besides a little brandish—a live tile , equally Microsoft calls it—that can show you real-fourth dimension information from that programme. The Calendar tile shows you your next appointment. Your Mail tile shows the latest incoming subject line. The People tile shows Twitter and Facebook posts as they pour in.

Tip

Not all Start menu tiles display their own names. Some apps, similar the ones for Agenda, People, and Mail, are meant to be visual dashboards. To find out such an app's name, bespeak to information technology with your cursor without clicking. A tinted, rectangular tooltip bar appears, identifying the name.

And so in Windows x, Microsoft decided to retain those colorful live tiles—on the right side of the Start menu (Figure one-nine).

Figure one-nine. As you lot elevate the pinnacle or right edge of the Correct Side of the Kickoff carte du jour, y'all run into it snap to a larger size once you've moved your cursor far enough. You don't have an infinite degree of freedom hither; you can only double the width or, if yous have one of those rare Samsung Billboard Monitors, peradventure triple it. You can too adjust the height of the Start carte—by dragging the height edge. You can goose information technology all the way to the top of your screen, or you can squish information technology downwardly to mushroom pinnacle.

You can make this scrolling "column" bigger; yous can even make information technology fill the screen, as it did in Windows 8; or yous can hide it completely. But the point is that this time, it'southward upwardly to you lot. The "Start screen" takes over your world merely as much as you desire it to.

Tip

If you're keyboard oriented, you tin can use the arrow keys to highlight the icon you want and and so printing the Enter key to open it.

How to Customize the Right Side

The left side is really Windows' playground; you can't practice much to alter information technology.

The right side, even so, is your playground. You tin customize it in lots of different ways. If your electric current chore doesn't work out, you could become a total-time correct-side customizer.

Make the correct side bigger or smaller

If you lot have a mouse or a trackpad, y'all can brand the correct side of the Beginning card either wider or taller; just grab the correct edge or the tiptop edge and drag. (In the initial release of Windows 10, you can't enlarge the Showtime menu with your finger on a touchscreen.)

Brand the right side fill up the screen

Perhaps y'all were one of the 11 people who actually liked Windows 8, including the way information technology had a Kickoff screen instead of a Get-go bill of fare. Well, that await is still available.

Right-click anywhere on the desktop. (Touchscreen: Hold your finger down on the desktop.) From the shortcut menu, choose Personalize. On the Settings screen, click Outset, and then click plough on "Use Kickoff full screen."

In this mode, the left side of the Start carte is gone. The live tiles fill up your unabridged desktop (which is handy for touchscreens).

Note

If your goal is to use Windows 10 on a tablet, you don't need to practise all this. Just turn on Tablet mode (Chapter 13). In Tablet manner, the Outset screen is standard and automatic.

Move a tile

You can, of course, drag the right side's tiles into a new order, putting the personal back into personal computer .

With the Outset carte open up, just drag the tile to a new spot. The other tiles scoot out of the fashion to make room.

That works fine if you have a mouse or a trackpad. But if you're using a touchscreen, that teaching leaves out a central fact: Dragging scrolls the right side! Instead, hold your finger down on the tile for half a second before dragging it.

Resize a tile

Tiles come in four sizes: three square sizes and ane rectangle. As function of your Starting time menu interior decoration binge, you lot may want to make some of them bigger and some of them smaller. Possibly you want to make the important ones rectangular so yous tin read more information on them. Maybe y'all want to make the rarely used ones smaller so that more of them fit into a compact infinite.

Correct-click the tile. (Touchscreen: Concord your finger downward on the tile; tap the … push button that appears.) From the shortcut menu, choose Resize. All icons give you a choice of Small-scale and Medium; some apps offer Broad or Large options, too. Run across Figure 1-10.

Effigy 1-10. Tiles on the right side come in four sizes: Modest (tiny square, no characterization); Medium (4x the times of Pocket-size—room for a name); Wide (twice the width of Medium); and Large (4x the size of Medium). Wide and Large options appear only for apps whose live tiles can brandish useful information. Elevate them around into a mosaic that satisfies your inner Mondrian.

Add together new tiles

Y'all can add tiles to the right side. They tin can be apps, folders, or disks (merely not individual files). You can use either of 2 techniques: dragging or right-clicking.

• The elevate method . Elevate the icon straight into the open Start bill of fare—from the desktop, an open window, the "All apps" listing, or the left side of the Start bill of fare.

• The correct-click method . Right-click an icon wherever fine icons are institute: in a window, on the desktop, in the "All apps" list, or on the left side. (Touchscreen: Concord your finger down on the icon for a 2d.) From the shortcut menu, cull Pin to Offset.

Tip

In the Edge browser, you can also add a web page to the right side. With the folio open, click the … push button at top right; choose Pin to Kickoff.

In each case, the newly installed tile appears at the bottom of the right side. (Yous might have to scroll to see it.)

Make a tile stop blinking

Some of your right side tiles are live tiles— tiny dashboards that display real-time incoming information. At that place, on the Mail service tile, you see the subject lines of the last few incoming messages; in that location, on the Agenda tile, is your next appointment; and then on.

It has to be said, though: Altogether, a Start carte du jour filled with blinky, scrolling icons tin can expect a little like Times Foursquare at midnight.

If you're feeling quite caffeinated enough already, you might not want live tiles so much as, well, dead ones.

If you'd rather silence the animation of a alive tile, right-click it. (Touchscreen: Hold your finger down on information technology, and then tap .) From the shortcut carte du jour, choose "Plough live tile off." The tile'due south electric current information disappears, and the live updating stops.

To reverse the process, "correct-click" an unmoving tile; from the shortcut menu, cull "Turn alive tile on" instead.

Remove a tile

Open up the Start menu. Right-click the tile y'all want to eliminate. (Touchscreen: Concur your finger downwards on information technology, and then tap the … button.) From the shortcut menu, cull Unpin from Start. (You're non actually discarding that item—just getting its tile off the Start menu.)

Group your tiles

The right side'south tiles aren't scattered pell-mell; they present an bonny, orderly mosaic. Non just are they mathematically nestled among one another, but they're actually grouped . Each cluster of related tiles tin bear a name , similar "Life at a glance" (Calendar, Mail, Weather…) or "Play and explore" (games, music, TV…).

But yous can change those headings, or those groupings, and come up with new ones of your own.

The technique isn't quite obvious, but you lot'll become the hang of it (come across Figure 1-11). Information technology works like this:

1. Drag a tile to the very bottom of the existing ones. (Touchscreen: Agree your finger nevertheless for a second earlier dragging.)

   When y'all drag far plenty—the right side might scroll, just keep your finger downwards—a horizontal bar appears, as shown in Effigy 1-11. That's Windows telling you, "I go information technology. You desire to create a new group correct hither."

2. Elevate the tile below the bar and release information technology .

   Release the tile you're dragging; information technology's at present happily setting up the homestead. Go get another tiles to drag over into the new group to join it, if you like. Build upwards the group's population.

3. Click or tap but in a higher place your newly grouped tiles .

   The words "Name group" appear.

4. Type a name for this group, and then press Enter .

   Your group name is now immortalized.

By the mode: Whenever you lot indicate to (or tap) the heading of any group, you may detect a footling "grip strip" at the right side. If you similar, you lot tin can drag that strip upwardly or downwardly to movement the entire group to a new spot amidst your existing groups. (Or horizontally, if you have a multicolumn right side.)

Figure 1-xi. Top: To create a new tile group, start past dragging 1 solitary tile below all other tiles. This is your colonist. A fat horizontal divider bar appears when you've gone far plenty. Let become. Centre: Indicate to the starter name ("Name grouping") and click. Lesser: Type a name for the grouping. Use the grip strip to elevate the group into a new spot, if you lot like.

At any point, you can rename a group (click or tap its name; type). To eliminate a group, but drag all of its tiles into other groups, one at a time. When the group is empty, its name vanishes into wherever withered, obsolete tile groups become.

Eliminate all tiles

Yes, it's possible to eliminate the unabridged right side. If you like your Showtime bill of fare to expect similar it did in the good old days, with only the left side showing, you can exercise that, as shown in Figure 1-12.

Of course, one time you've done that, yous've merely eliminated ane of the nigh useful ways of opening things on your PC. Now you can open apps only from the left side or the taskbar.

Figure 1-12. Top: To remove all the tiles from the correct side, right-click it and choose Unpin from Start. (Touchscreen: Hold your finger down on the tile, and and then tap the … button to see Unpin from Showtime.) Repeat until you've eliminated all the tiles. Middle: Now only the left column remains, just as it was in Windows vii. Lesser: Drag the correct edge of the card inward, closing up the empty space where the right side used to be.

Change the color

You can also change colors of the various Start menu elements (and the taskbar, and the Action Centre). Come across Chapter 4 for the step-by-steps.

Turn off ads

From time to time, you may spot a Offset-carte du jour tile that you didn't put in that location. It's a proposition of an app that Microsoft thinks you might like—in other words, an ad.

If you'd prefer Microsoft and its ad partners to proceed their darned apps to themselves, open Settings→Personalization→Commencement, and turn off "Occasionally show suggestions in Start."

Shutting Down

What should you exercise when you're finished using your computer for the moment?

Millions of people shut their PCs off, but they shouldn't; it's a jumbo waste of time. When you close down, you have to wait for all your programs to close—then the side by side morning, yous have to reopen everything, reposition your windows, and get everything dorsum the way you lot had information technology.

You lot shouldn't merely leave your computer on all the time, either. That's a waste of electricity, a security chance, and a black mark for the environment.

What you lot should exercise is put your motorcar to sleep. If it's a laptop, just shut the hat. If it's a tablet, but printing the Sleep switch. If information technology's a desktop PC, it'south usually a matter of pressing the physical power push.

The Slumber/Shut Down/Restart Commands

If you lot really want to do the sleeping or shutting down affair using the onscreen commands, you'll be happy to know that in Windows 10, you lot no longer demand xx minutes and a tour guide to find them. They're right at that place in the Start menu, almost the lesser. Cull Ability to see them.

As shown in Effigy 1-13, shutting downwards is simply i of the options for finishing your work session. What follows are your others.

Sleep

Sleep is great. When the flight bellboy hands over your pretzels and cranberry cocktail, you can take a break without closing all your programs or shutting downward the reckoner.

Figure i-13. Shutting down your computer requires merely ii steps at present, rather than 417 (as in Windows 8). Open the Start menu. Choose Ability, and then "Shut down".

The instant you lot put the computer to sleep, Windows quietly transfers a re-create of everything in memory into an invisible file on the hard drive. Just information technology still keeps everything alive in memory—the bombardment provides a tiny trickle of power—for when you lot render and want to dive back into work.

If you do render soon, the side by side startup is lightning-fast. Everything reappears on the screen faster than you can say, "Redmond, Washington."

If y'all don't return presently, and so Windows eventually cuts ability, abandoning what information technology had memorized in RAM. Now your figurer is using no power at all; information technology's in hibernate mode.

Fortunately, Windows still has the difficult drive copy of your work environment. And so at present when you tap a key to wake the computer, you lot may have to look thirty seconds or so—not as fast as two seconds, simply certainly better than the 5 minutes information technology would take to offset upwards, reopen all your programs, reposition your document windows, then on.

The bottom line: When you're done working for the moment—or for the day—put your calculator to slumber instead of shutting it downward. You lot save power, you save time, and y'all don't risk whatever data loss.

You can send a laptop to sleep simply by endmost the chapeau. On any kind of computer, you tin can trigger Sleep by choosing it from the →Power control, or by pushing the PC's power button, if y'all've set it upwards that way, as described beneath.

Restart

This command quits all open up programs and so quits and restarts Windows once more automatically. The reckoner doesn't actually turn off. You might do this to "refresh" your estimator when you discover that it'south responding sluggishly, for example.

Close downwards

This is what virtually people would call "really, really off." When you shut down your PC, Windows quits all open programs, offers you the opportunity to salve any unsaved documents, exits Windows, and turns off the computer.

There's well-nigh no reason to close down your PC anymore, though. Sleep is almost always improve all the way around.

The only exceptions have to do with hardware installation. Anytime you accept to open upwards the PC to brand a change (installing retention, hard drives, or audio or video cards), you should shut the thing downwardly first.

Tip

If you're a keyboardy sort of person, you might prefer this faster route to shut down: Printing Ctrl+Alt+Delete to summon the Lock/Switch User screen, and then Tab your way over to the button in the lower right. Press Enter, and arrow-primal your mode to Shut down. Press Enter once more.

Three Triggers for Sleep/Shut Down—and How to Change Them

You lot now know how to trigger the Shut downward control using the Offset menu→Ability button. But in that location are fifty-fifty faster ways.

If yous take a laptop, just shut the lid. If it's a tablet, tap its Slumber switch. If y'all have a desktop PC, press its power push button ( ).

In each of these cases, though—menu, hat, switch, or button— you can decide whether the figurer shuts downward, goes to sleep, hibernates, or simply ignores you.

To find the factory setting that controls what happens when you close the lid or hitting the power button, click in the "Inquire me anything" search box and type lid .

In the search results, the summit hitting is "Alter what closing the lid does." Printing Enter to select information technology.

Now you make it at the "Define power buttons" screen. Hither, for each option (pressing the ability button; pressing the Sleep button, if you take one; endmost the lid), you can choose "Slumber," "Do nothing," "Hibernate," "Shut down," or "Turn off the display."

And you lot tin set up different behaviors for when the machine is plugged in and when it'due south running on bombardment power.

Navigating the Start Carte past Keyboard

If your computer has a concrete keyboard—yous quondam-timer, you!—you lot can navigate and control the Start bill of fare in either of ii ways:

Use the Pointer Keys

In one case the Start menu is open up, you tin utilise the arrow keys to "walk" up and down the carte du jour. For example, press to enter the left-side cavalcade from the bottom. Or press and then to enter the right side.

Either style, once you've highlighted something in either cavalcade, yous can press the or keys to hop to the opposite side of the menu, or press the or keys to highlight other commands in the column (even the Power command or "All apps"). (You tin can no longer type the kickoff initial of something to select it.)

Once y'all've highlighted something, you lot can press Enter to "click" it (open up it), or tap the key or Esc to close the Kickoff menu and forget the whole thing.

Use the Search Box

This thing is awesome . The instant you press the key, your insertion point blinks in the new "Ask me anything" search box below the Start menu (Figure i-13).

Note

If you click in the "Inquire me anything" search box instead of pressing , you become a panel full of news, conditions, and other details Windows thinks might be relevant to your life. That's all part of Cortana, the phonation banana described in Affiliate 5.

That's your cue that you tin now begin typing the proper noun of whatever you want to open.

Notation

The search box used to be part of the Start menu. Now it's actually part of the taskbar. Information technology still takes yous i click, tap, or keystroke to highlight it for typing—but because information technology's e'er visible, it seems more present and useful. Y'all know?

The instant you kickoff to type, you trigger Windows' very fast, whole-computer search role. This search can discover files, folders, programs, electronic mail messages, address book entries, calendar appointments, pictures, movies, PDF documents, music files, web bookmarks, and Microsoft Office documents, among other things.

It likewise finds anything in the Start card, making information technology a very quick manner to pull up something without having to click through a bunch of submenus.

Y'all can read the meaty details about search in Chapter 3.

Jump Lists in the Start Menu

Jump lists are submenus that list frequently used commands and files in each of your programs for quick access.

For example, the spring list for a web browser might offer commands similar "New window" and "Close window"; the jump list for a Microsoft Office plan (like Word) might list documents you've edited lately.

In other words, leap lists can save y'all time when y'all want to resume piece of work on something you had open recently. They salvage you burrowing through folders.

Now, spring lists can announced either in the Start menu (in the "Nigh used" section) or on your taskbar. Jump Lists in the Taskbar describes the taskbar versions, just here's a quick rundown on the Commencement menu versions.

Recently Opened Documents

The left side of the Start menu—the "Most used" section—keeps track of recently used documents automatically, every bit shown in Effigy ane-xiv. This listing of Recent documents changes as your workflow does; documents driblet off the list if you don't open them much anymore.

Y'all can, even so, pin a document to its spring list, significant that it won't disappear even if you never open it. Figure i-14 shows the technique.

Effigy 1-14. Jump lists display the most recently opened documents in each programme. Click the > button to see them. To pin ane of these document s so that it won't disappear on you, point to it without clicking, every bit shown here, and so click the pushpin icon. Now there'south a new section in the spring listing called Pinned, where that document volition remain undisturbed until you unpin it (by clicking the pushpin once more).

The Hugger-mugger Starting time Menu

Windows ten's new (one-time) Get-go button harbors a hugger-mugger: It can sprout a tiny utility carte du jour, as shown in Effigy 1-fifteen.

To see it, r ight-click the push button, or (on a touchscreen) hold your finger downwards on it.

Tip

Or press +Ten to brand the underground Start card appear (if you take a keyboard, of class).

Figure 1-15. This hugger-mugger piffling carte du jour of options appears when you correct-click the push. It's a shortcut to the Job Manager and the Control Panel, among other things.

There, in all its majesty, is the clandestine Start menu. It'southward seething with shortcuts to toys for the technically inclined.

All the items in information technology are described elsewhere in this book, but some are especially useful to have at your mousetip:

• System opens a window that provides every possible detail about your machine.

• Control Console is the quickest known method to get to the desktop Control Panel, described in Chapter 7.

• Task Manager . Huge. This special screen (Exiting Programs) is your lifeline when a plan seems to be locked up. Thanks to the Chore Manager, you can quit that app and go on with your life.

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Source: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/windows-10-the/9781491948286/ch01.html

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