You’ve gotten your Windows 10 upgrade from Microsoft. It still has that new OS smell. Now what? Before you take your laptop out for a spin, you need to tune it into tip-top running condition.
Here are the best and most useful modifications you can do to your Windows 10 system, plus some valuable tips about using the new OS’ features and tools.
1. Delete your previous Windows version installation After you upgrade to Windows 10 from Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 (where your installed programs are brought over to the new OS, and personal files are retained), a backup of your previous version of Windows resides on your hard drive (or SSD). It’s put there in case something goes wrong where you need to roll Windows 10 back to the older Windows. These files can eat up as much as 20GB of storage.
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To get rid of this backup, freeing up space, run the Disk Cleanup application. (It’s listed in the Start Menu under the “Windows Administrative Tools” folder.) In Disk Cleanup, click the “Clean up system files” button, and wait for the program to scan your hard drive or SSD. From the list of file categories, put a check by “Previous Windows installation(s)” and “Temporary Windows installation files,” and click the “OK.”
2. Know how to sign out of Windows 10 Where’s the option to sign out of Windows 10? Click your user account name at the upper-left of the Start Menu; a small panel will slide down from your name with “Sign out” listed. The fastest way to sign out remains as it was in prior Windows versions: Just press the Windows logo and “L” keys together, and you’ll be instantly signed out.
3. Pick whatever accent color you want You can change the accent color of Windows 10, but you’re given only a limited palette of 48 colors to choose from under the Personalization page of the Settings app. But the classic Control Panel that’s still in Windows 10 gives you tools to create nearly any color you want for the accent. In the classic Control Panel, this color picker is nested under “Appearance and Personalization,” “Personalization” and “Color and Appearance.”
4. Use the new delay timer in the Snipping Tool There isn’t a new screenshot app in Windows 10, but the desktop application, Snipping Tool, gets a slight update. It now has a “Delay” button: Click it and select a range from 1 to 5 seconds. Then, when you click the “New” button, the capturing will be delayed by the time-delay you chose. This can be helpful to capture, for example, a menu in an application that’s designed to go away if you click away from the application. You would set the Snipping Tool to delay itself by 5 seconds, and, from there, quickly click open the menu in the application that you want to capture an image of, doing so within 5 seconds.
5. Change Edge’s default search engine from Bing to another one Microsoft’s new browser in Windows 10, Edge, also uses Bing as its search engine, but it’s not obvious right away how to change it, should you prefer a different one. If you look up the option to change the default search engine under the browser’s settings, the buttons are grayed out. The first thing you need to do is visit the search engine’s site. While the site is open in a tab in Edge, you then go to the browser’s settings: Click the “More actions” button that’s to the upper-right of the browser, select “Settings,” scroll down and select “View advanced settings,” scroll down to “Search in the address bar with,” click “Bing (www.bing.com)” and click “
6. Delay automatic updates over Wi-Fi Under the Home version of Windows 10, updates to the OS by Microsoft are automatically pushed out and installed. With the Pro, Enterprise and Education versions, you can defer updates “for several months,” according to Microsoft, but security updates are exempt.
Supposedly, updates are downloaded only on a non-metered Internet connection. So, if you’d rather delay receiving updates (such as, to avoid the possibility of a new driver being installed that doesn’t work with your system), one trick to try is to set your Wi-Fi connection under Windows 10 as a metered one. While you are connected to a Wi-Fi signal, click the Wi-Fi icon on the notification tray, and then click “Network settings” in the panel that opens. This will launch the “Network & Internet” page of the Settings app. Scroll down and click “Advanced options,” which will take you to another page where you can set your Wi-Fi connection as metered.
If you are connected to the Internet via Ethernet, there are two other, more technically involved ways to delay the automatic updating process, using either Microsoft’s “troubleshooter” program or the Group Policy Editor. Here are detailed instructions.
7. Record video clips using the Xbox app The Xbox app’s “Game bar” feature is meant for recording video clips of a game app as you play it, but it can also be used to record your activity on other programs. (This function may not work on some desktop applications and non-game apps. And you cannot use the Game bar to record your interaction with the desktop environment or File Explorer.) You turn on the Game bar by pressing the Windows logo and “G” keys together, and then, in the small panel that appears, checking the box by “Yes, this is a game.” The Game bar will appear. Click its red button to start recording; the gear icon to the right takes you to a settings panel where among its options you can set the maximum time for a video clip. You can also grab a screenshot by clicking the camera icon on the Game bar.
8. Remove the OneDrive folder from File Explorer If you’re not using Microsoft’s cloud drive service, OneDrive, and would rather not have the OneDrive folder appear in the File Explorer, you can remove it by tweaking the Windows 10 registry. Launch the Registry Editor: Press the Windows logo and “R” keys together, and then enter “regedit” in the Run panel to launch the program. From Registry Editor, navigate to: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTCLSID{018D5C66-4533-4307-9B53-224DE2ED1FE6 Double-click “System.IsPinnedToNameSpaceTree” and change its Value Data from “1” to “0.” Sign out of Windows 10 and sign back in, or restart your computer.
9. Pin Windows apps to the desktop Windows 10 is designed to let you pin Windows apps to the taskbar and the Start Menu’s tiles panel, but not to the desktop. Pinning apps to the desktop is possible once you create a new folder on the desktop and name it “NAME.” (You can replace “NAME” with whatever name you want.) This creates a modified shortcut to the File Explorer, which, when opened, will show an alphabetical listing of all the desktop applications and apps installed on your Windows 10 system. To pin a Windows app to the desktop, right-click on its icon here, select “Create shortcut” from the small pop-up menu, and then click “Yes” to have the shortcut for the app appear on the desktop.
10. Access all Windows 10 settings under one user interface Windows 10’s various settings are spread across its Settings app and the classic Control Panel, but if you’re frequently fiddling around with the OS, it becomes a pain switching between the two. The solution: Evoke all the settings for Windows 10 under one program (which has been referred to as “GodMode”). You do this by creating a new folder on the desktop, and naming it “NAME.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}”. (Replace “NAME” with whatever you want to call this folder.) The folder’s icon will change to that of the classic Control Panel. Double-click it and you’ll be taken to a long listing of all the adjustable settings in Windows 10, organized alphabetically by category.
11. Uninstall default Windows apps Windows 10 comes with several Windows apps that cannot be uninstalled, including the Calendar, Mail, People and aforementioned Xbox app.
Tech blogger Thomas Vanhoutte has compiled a collection of commands that you run under the PowerShell program to remove these default apps. To launch PowerShell, find it under the “Windows PowerShell” folder in the Start Menu, and right-click on Windows PowerShell and select “Run as administrator” from the pop-up menu. Then find the specific listing that Vanhoutte has provided for uninstalling the specific Windows app you want removed, and copy-and-paste it into the PowerShell command prompt.
For example, to uninstall the aforementioned People app, copy-and-paste “Get-AppxPackage *people* | Remove-AppxPackage” into the PowerShell command prompt and press the “Enter” key. Vanhoutte also provides a script to restore all the default Windows apps, in case you’d like them back.
Wen is a freelance writer. He can be reached at howardwen@gmail.com.
