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Get familiar with the Windows interface, layout and structure.

Quick reference

Explore the Windows Interface

Take a first look at the new Windows 11 Interface and become familiar with where commands, menus, and applications are located. 

When to use

It's always beneficial to orientate ourselves with a new operating system like Windows 11 so we know where our commands, menus, utilities, settings, and applications are located. 

Instructions

Let's familiarize ourselves with the Windows 11 interface. 

The most noticeable change in Windows 11 is that the task bar is now centered in the middle of the screen. In Windows 10, the task bar was over on the left-hand side. 

The Start button on the task bar is where we click to open the start menu. We can also press the Windows logo key on the keyboard to open the start menu. This is where we go to launch applications and access system controls. 

The system tray is the group of icons in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. This is where we have our system controls and quick settings. We can adjust the volume, brightness, turn WiFi off and on, switch to Airplane Mode and so much more. 

Click on the date and time in the task bar to open the Notification Center and mini-calendar. From here we can view any recent notifications such as reminders and emails and also work with the calendar. 

The Task Bar

Search

The magnifying glass icon on the task bar is where we go to search for files, folders, applications, and other items. 

Workspaces

The next icon on the task bar allows us to manage and use multiple workspaces. A workspace is just the desktop. If we have a lot of windows open, we may want to organize these windows onto different desktops to give ourselves more room. We can give each workspace a name and toggle quickly between them by clicking the workspace icon. 

Widgets

Widgets are a handy way of presenting bite-sized pieces of useful information without taking up too much room. We can customize the widgets to display the information of most interest to us. 

  • Press the Win key + W to open the Widgets pane. 
Chat

The Chat button is a quick way to harness the power of Microsoft Teams to chat and meet with friends, family, or colleagues. We can start a conversation with any of our contacts or start an audio or video meeting from here. 

Working with Applications

Let's open some applications and take a look at some of the changes in Windows 11. 

  • Click on the Microsoft Edge icon on the task bar. 
  • Click on the File Explorer icon on the task bar. 

Applications open in their own window. In Windows 11, each window has curved corners to give them a modern, slick appearance. 

We can move windows around by using drag and drop and resize the windows by dragging the edges in or out. Each window has three buttons in the top right-hand corner: minimize, maximize and close.

We use minimize when we want to get the window off the screen. Minimize doesn't close the application down, it simply minimizes it down into the task bar. We can get the window back again by clicking on the relevant icon on the task bar. 

The maximize button will increase the size of the window so it takes up the entire screen. Notice that if we hover our mouse over the maximize button we also get a choice of layouts. This helps us organize our windows on the screen. 

The cross button closes the window down completely. 

Each application has its own set of controls and settings. These are not consistent across all applications. For example, the controls for the Calculator might be in a different place to the controls in File Explorer. Try and get into the habit of looking for three dots in an application window as this normally denotes a menu. In some applications, the settings are located under three lines as opposed to three dots.

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  • 00:03 Let's get ourselves familiar with Windows 11 by exploring the interface,
  • 00:08 because it's always beneficial to know exactly where commands, menus,
  • 00:13 and other utilities are located before attempting to use Windows 11.
  • 00:18 Now, as we've seen already, we have our taskbar at the bottom of the screen.
  • 00:22 We've seen that we can press the Windows logo key or
  • 00:25 click on the Windows icon on the taskbar to open up the Start menu.
  • 00:30 This is where we're going to come to find our applications.
  • 00:32 We have a search bar at the top.
  • 00:34 So if I want to search for something like Excel, for example,
  • 00:37 I can simply type it in, I don't even need to press Enter.
  • 00:41 And you can see just below, it's found everything on my PC that matches Excel,
  • 00:46 and the top one up here is the actual application.
  • 00:49 So we should be pretty familiar with that taskbar and the Start screen.
  • 00:54 If we now cast our eyes down to the bottom right hand corner,
  • 00:57 we're going to see a whole bunch of icons down here.
  • 01:00 So this is where we have some of our system controls.
  • 01:03 And it's also where we can access our quick settings.
  • 01:07 So if you want to do something really quick, like just change the volume or
  • 01:11 maybe modify the brightness on our RPC, we don't have to dig
  • 01:14 around in the full settings menu, we can just come to the quick settings panel.
  • 01:19 Now, your icons down here might look slightly different to mine,
  • 01:22 it really depends what you've got plugged in and turned on.
  • 01:24 You can see I have a touch keyboard, you can see I have a microphone plugged in,
  • 01:29 I can also see that I have my OneDrive connected down here.
  • 01:32 And if I click this little up arrow, this is what we call the overflow area.
  • 01:36 So any settings that I have down here that it can't fit into the bottom right
  • 01:41 hand corner easily, we're going to find in this little overflow menu.
  • 01:46 And as always, we have the date and time in the bottom right hand corner.
  • 01:49 If we click on this and
  • 01:50 click the arrow, it's going to pop open a mini calendar view,
  • 01:53 which can be really helpful if you're just trying to look for a particular date.
  • 01:58 Now, if we go back to the taskbar for one second, let's take a look at some of
  • 02:02 the other applications that come as default with Windows 11.
  • 02:06 So we've seen the Windows logo key that opens up the Start menu.
  • 02:09 That's where we go to find our applications.
  • 02:12 The next button along is where we go if we want to search for anything on our system.
  • 02:17 If we click this, it pops open a very similar window to the one that we had when
  • 02:22 we were opening the Start menu.
  • 02:24 From here, we can search for anything on our PC.
  • 02:27 So that might be files, or folders, applications, people, or other items.
  • 02:33 If it's on your PC, you can find it through Windows Search.
  • 02:36 So if I type in something like pptx, that's going to then show
  • 02:40 me any files that I have on my system with a dope pptx file extension.
  • 02:45 If I type in Powerpoint, it's going to find the actual application.
  • 02:51 Now, remember, at the moment, I don't have a great deal of files and
  • 02:54 folders on this PC because it is a fairly recent build.
  • 02:58 If you're searching on yours, you might find that your search results is a lot
  • 03:01 longer and a lot more comprehensive than mine.
  • 03:03 The next icon along is the workspaces icon.
  • 03:06 And if I hover over this icon, you can see immediately it pops up Desktop 1 and
  • 03:11 then I have the option of adding a new desktop.
  • 03:14 So this basically allows you to kind of have the feel of multiple monitors.
  • 03:20 So if you have lots of applications open, you could choose to set up different
  • 03:24 desktops and arrange those applications across the different desktops.
  • 03:28 It makes it a lot easier for you to manage your work.
  • 03:30 And you can maybe have one desktop that maybe has all of your Internet browsers on
  • 03:34 it, one desktop for Word documents, another one for
  • 03:37 your internal company system, things like that.
  • 03:40 You can really arrange your windows as you want.
  • 03:43 And of course, you can rename these desktops as well, and simply
  • 03:47 switch between them by selecting whichever desktop you want to use at any given time.
  • 03:52 So desktops is a great little application.
  • 03:55 As we've already seen, we can open up our widgets pane,
  • 03:58 which is hidden over on the left hand side of the screen,
  • 04:01 simply by clicking on the weather in the bottom right hand corner.
  • 04:05 Now, if you don't have the weather in the bottom right hand corner,
  • 04:09 there is another way that you can open up that widgets pane, and
  • 04:12 that is by pressing Windows key + W, and it's going to pop that out.
  • 04:15 And widgets are really snippets of information which might be useful to us,
  • 04:20 so it's really handy to be able to access them so quickly.
  • 04:23 Of course, this entire widgets pane can be customized, which we'll look at later on.
  • 04:27 The next button along is our chat window.
  • 04:30 So this is why we have integration with Microsoft teams.
  • 04:33 We can chat with colleagues, friends, and family,
  • 04:36 and we can even start video and audio meetings.
  • 04:39 The next button along is file explorer, and we're going to spend quite a bit of
  • 04:43 time taking look through the differences between File Explorer in Windows 10 and
  • 04:48 Windows 11.
  • 04:48 I'm also going to show you lots of cool new things that you can do in
  • 04:52 File Explorer in order to manage your folders and your files better.
  • 04:55 Now, when it comes to our applications,
  • 04:57 you can see here I've simply opened Word on my PC.
  • 05:00 A lot of the functionality between Windows 10 and Windows 11 is the same.
  • 05:04 I can pick up the window, and I can drag it around.
  • 05:07 And I have buttons in the top right hand corner of my applications in order
  • 05:11 to minimize it down into the system tray.
  • 05:13 And if I click on the icon in the taskbar, it's going to maximize that window again.
  • 05:17 Remember, we also have a maximize button up here, and
  • 05:20 that's also where we go to access our new snap layouts.
  • 05:24 Across in the corner of an application window, we'll generally
  • 05:28 close that application down, and each application now has its own settings.
  • 05:33 Now, when it comes to working with Windows native applications, and
  • 05:37 once again, I'm just going to bring up the calculator.
  • 05:41 Each application in Windows 11 is its own individual application.
  • 05:45 And what I mean by that is there isn't a consistent way of accessing menus and
  • 05:50 settings within each application window across the board.
  • 05:54 For some of the apps that we open, such as this calculator,
  • 05:57 we can access our settings by clicking on these three lines.
  • 06:01 In other applications, we might have three dots,
  • 06:04 or we might have a drop down arrow, so don't expect the settings to be exactly
  • 06:09 the same in every single application that you open.
  • 06:12 There isn't much consistency, but in general, look out for three lines,
  • 06:17 three dots, or some kind of drop down arrow.
  • 06:19 The final thing to really mention here about the desktop is, obviously,
  • 06:23 we have a really nice desktop wallpaper in the background.
  • 06:26 I'm going to show you exactly how you can personalize your desktop backgrounds a bit
  • 06:30 later on.
  • 06:31 And the only other thing that I have on my desktop is the recycle bin.
  • 06:35 The recycle bin is where all of our deleted items go into.
  • 06:38 And of course, there are lots of things that we can do with the recycle bin in
  • 06:42 terms of emptying it and also restoring files back to their original location.
  • 06:47 That is pretty much it when it comes to the Windows 11 interface.
  • 06:51 It's not a particularly complicated or fussy interface this time around.
  • 06:55 Hopefully, you'll enjoy working with it a lot more than Windows 10.

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