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Windows 11 Helpful Tips

Windows 11 Helpful Tips

Windows 10 End of Life was in October 2025. If you are still on Windows 10, contact the IS Team to schedule an upgrade to Windows 11.

Be aware that your laptop will be reimaged as part of this upgrade to Windows 11. Make sure all important files are backed up to OneDrive so that they can be retrieved after the upgrade.

 

So, you have upgraded to Windows 11… Now what?

If you are familiar with Windows 10, here are some things you may need to be aware of when adjusting to this upgraded operating system.

 

Changes to the Task Bar:

On Windows 11 your taskbar will be centered at the bottom of your screen by default. Your Windows icon, Windows search, and open/pinned applications will be centered rather than oriented to the left, as it had been on Windows 10.

If you prefer the way it was on Windows 10, you can change this back by right-clicking the taskbar and selecting “Taskbar Settings” or clicking on the magnifying glass “Search” icon and typing in “taskbar” to bring up all taskbar settings:

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Click to expand the dropdown under “Taskbar behaviors”.
Next to “Taskbar alignment”, you can choose between Left or Center:

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You can also change whether you want Search and Task View to show up on your Taskbar. Clicking on Task view will show you all your open windows. If you have a laptop, you can also see this view by swiping up with 3 fingers on the trackpad of your laptop.

To pin apps to your Taskbar, right click on the app in the Taskbar when it is open and click “Pin to taskbar”. This will show the application on the taskbar even when not in use, for easy access.

 

Changes to the right-click menu

The options for “Cut”, “Copy”, and “Paste” are now icons:

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If you click the “Show More Options” option at the bottom of the menu, a more familiar right-click menu appears:

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File Explorer
You can now have multiple tabs open in File Explorer, you no longer need a separate window for each File Explorer search:

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Display Settings:
To edit your display settings, right click on your desktop background and click display settings or click the magnifying glass and type “Settings”, then click Display.

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Click the box at the bottom right to see your display options. Extend these displays will make it so both your screens are different, as opposed to Duplicate these displays which will make each display the same. If your screens need to be reordered, you can click Identify to see how your displays are labeled, then drag and drop to make sure they are in the right order according to how you have your displays set up on your desk.

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To change your main display, click on the number of the screen you would like to be your main display (click Identify if you are not sure what number it is), expand the dropdown under Multiple displays, then check the box that says Make this my main display.

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Setting Default Apps:
Open Settings, select Apps on the left menu bar, then select Default apps.

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From here you can scroll down to the app you want to set as a default or use the search bar and select it.

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At the top right, click Set default.

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You can repeat this process with Microsoft Outlook to set your default mail app to Outlook.

 

Resize/Snap Windows:

If you hover over the maximize/minimize button at the top right hand of a window, you will see all of the different options that you can “snap” that window to:

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After you click on one of those options, it will let you select other windows to fill the remaining spaces.

 

Hotkeys and Trackpad Shortcuts:

  • Swiping up with 3 fingers on your trackpad will show you all open windows.

  • Pressing the Windows key + Tab will also show you all open windows.

  • Swiping down with 3 fingers on your trackpad will minimize all open windows.

  • Windows key + L at the same time will lock your computer.

  • Windows key + Shift + S will open up the snipping tool so you can take a screenshot.

  • Windows key + PrtScn key will take a screenshot of your entire screen.

  • Ctrl + P will open up a print dialogue box.

  • Ctrl + S will save what you are working on.

  • Ctrl + C copies highlighted text/objects.

  • Ctrl + X cuts highlighted text/objects.

  • Ctrl + V pastes copied or cut text/objects.

  • Press the Windows key + arrow keys to snap/resize your open windows to different sides of your screen.

  • Windows Key + P gives you display options for your projector screen/second display:

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The “Duplicate” option displays a copy of your main screen on your second screen/projector, and the “Extend” option makes the second screen/projector a separate screen alongside your main display.