5 Important Home windows 11 Settings You Ought to Change Instantly

In October 2025, Microsoft officially ended support for Windows 10. This implies your pc will cease receiving software program updates, safety fixes, and even technical assist shifting ahead. To ensure your PC nonetheless runs easily and stays protected against malware, Microsoft encourages customers emigrate to Home windows 11. Not solely does it present steady assist, but it surely additionally affords enhancements like new Windows 11 AI features, Android and iOS integration through Cellphone Hyperlink, and higher safety.

However the factor is, Home windows 11 is not robotically optimized on your wants proper out of the field. Among the default settings can decelerate your PC’s efficiency, whereas different settings are merely pointless and may even make issues inconvenient for you. Fortunately, like its predecessors, Home windows 11 is simple to customise and offers you management over what you need and do not wish to use. In the event you’ve simply put in Home windows 11 and need to fine-tune your pc, listed below are 5 of the settings you may wish to change.

The Home windows Begin menu has considerably advanced all through the years, integrating new useful options like pinned apps, current information, and good suggestions. However not each change within the Begin menu is definitely useful. Some additions — just like the “Search the net” outcomes — simply muddle the area, particularly since most individuals use the Begin menu to search for native information and apps, not search the net. The excellent news is that you may flip it off, although it is not as straightforward as going into Settings. Plus, there is a totally different approach of disabling the “Search the net” ends in the Begin menu whenever you’re on Windows Home versus Windows Pro.

To take away the net ends in the Begin Menu in your Home windows House, this is what it is advisable to do:

1. Launch Registry Editor from the Begin Menu.
2. Click on Sure when prompted.
3. Underneath Laptop, broaden the folder HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
4. Open the Software program folder.
5. Go to Insurance policies.
6. Choose Microsoft.
7. Double-click on Home windows.
8. Proper-click an empty area within the right-hand panel.
9. Click on on New.
10. Select Key.
11. Title the Key as Explorer.
12. Open the Explorer folder.
13. Go to the appropriate facet panel.
14. Proper-click on an empty area once more.
15. Choose New.
16. Go to DWORD (32-bit) Worth.
17. Title it “DisableSearchBoxSuggestions.”
18. Double-click on DisableSearchBoxSuggestions to open it.
19. Change the Worth knowledge from 0 to 1.
20. Hit OK to save lots of the change.
21. Reboot your pc.

From right here, whenever you attempt utilizing the search bar within the Begin Menu, solely your native information and apps will present up within the outcomes. In the event you’re on Home windows Professional and Enterprise, there is a faster workaround to show off net outcomes from the Begin Menu. Go to “Edit group coverage” within the Begin Menu and open Administrative Templates below Laptop Configuration. Double-click on Home windows Parts, after which Search. Open “Don’t enable net search” and set it to Enabled. Do the identical for “Do not search the net or show net ends in Search.” Lastly, restart your PC to use the adjustments.

Home windows 11 did a bunch of redesigns on the taskbar and Begin Menu. Most likely the obvious change is the centered taskbar that resembles the Dock in macOS. The Begin Menu now additionally comes with pinned apps, a few of which are not even put in in your pc. In the event you’re a kind of individuals who aren’t a fan of the centered taskbar or the default pinned apps within the Begin Menu, you may change these settings in Home windows 11. 

You possibly can customise the taskbar in a wide range of methods. To cover the search field, observe these steps:

1. Proper-click on the taskbar.
2. Choose Taskbar settings.
3. Underneath Taskbar objects, set Search to Cover as an alternative of Search field. This removes the search field from the taskbar. You can even toggle off Activity view from the identical settings.

To alter the alignment of the Taskbar, observe these steps:

1. Broaden Taskbar behaviors.
2. Change Taskbar alignment from Heart to Left.

To delete or pin apps to the taskbar:

1. Proper-click on the app you wish to delete from the taskbar.
2. Choose Unpin from taskbar.
3. Within the Begin Menu, seek for the app you wish to pin to the taskbar.
4. Proper-click on the search consequence that pops up.
5. Choose Pin to taskbar.

To edit the Begin Menu, this is what it is advisable to do:

1. Launch the Begin Menu.
2. Proper-click on the apps you wish to take off from the Pinned part.
3. Select Unpin from Begin. 
4. Within the search bar, kind the app you like so as to add to the Begin Menu.
5. Proper-click on the app icon that seems.
6. Go to Pin to Begin.

To additional customise the Begin menu, you may also activate/off the choices like lately added apps, most used apps, really helpful information, suggestions, and account-related notifications.

Like most different working programs on the market, Home windows 11 comes pre-installed with a great deal of apps from each Microsoft itself and the pc producer. A few of these are essential Windows apps price preserving, comparable to Clipchamp if you happen to’re into video enhancing and Edge if you happen to do not wish to set up one other browser (in any case, Edge is now far higher than the earlier native browser, Web Explorer). A couple of OEM apps will also be fairly useful. As an illustration, Lenovo Vantage enables you to set a battery threshold on your laptop computer, whereas HP Audio Heart helps you improve your pc’s sound.

Nonetheless, not each single one among these preloaded apps will truly be helpful to you. Most of them may simply be added muddle. So to save lots of area, you are higher off uninstalling the apps you discover pointless. To take action, observe this information:

1. Go into Settings.
2. Choose Apps.
3. Click on Put in apps.
4. To uninstall Microsoft apps, kind ‘Microsoft’ within the search bar.
5. To uninstall OEM apps, seek for your pc producer (e.g., Lenovo for Lenovo computer systems/laptops, Dell for Dell computer systems/laptops).
6. Flick thru the record of apps to seek out those you do not wish to maintain. You possibly can even choose to uninstall all of the OEM apps as Home windows will nonetheless run advantageous with out them.
7. Click on the three dots subsequent to the app you wish to take away.
8. Select Uninstall from the menu.

The app needs to be uninstalled from the system after a few seconds. If the app you wish to delete is not within the Settings, although, you may attempt in search of it within the Management Panel as an alternative.

By default, Home windows 11 makes use of Microsoft apps to open information. As an illustration, TXT information open in Notepad, JPGs in Images, and DOCs in Phrase. Whereas this typically works for some customers, there are specific file varieties which might be higher used with third-party apps. You may wish to entry PDFs in Adobe Acrobat as an alternative of Edge, or play MP4s in VLC as an alternative of the Media Participant. 

The excellent news is that Home windows 11’s default apps aren’t actually set in stone. In the event you choose to make use of a distinct app on your information, you may simply set them as the brand new default. Merely set up the app in your Home windows PC as you usually do. Then, change the default app from the Settings. This is how:

1. Launch Settings. 
2. Go to Apps. 
3. Choose Default Apps. 
4. Go to the app you wish to set as default. 
5. Discover the file kind that you really want the app to open. As an illustration, for Chrome, you may normally use WEBP and HTML. 
6. Click on the arrow subsequent to the file kind. 
7. Select the app from the advised choices. 
8. Hit Set default. 

One other option to change to your most well-liked default app in Home windows 11 is by going to the file itself. Open File Explorer and navigate to the file. Then, right-click on it, choose Open with, and click on on Select one other app. Choose the brand new app you wish to use and hit At all times to make it the brand new default app for that file kind.

As you employ your Home windows PC, Microsoft can monitor your knowledge and actions and use them in numerous methods. For one, there’s the promoting ID. This distinctive person identifier is what put in apps depend on to ship adverts which might be extra related to you primarily based in your pursuits. Microsoft additionally works together with your diagnostic knowledge, account data, and different collected knowledge like your net exercise and buy historical past to give you customized affords. These affords embrace related product adverts, function suggestions, and utilization suggestions. To disable each of those settings, do the next:

1. Open Settings.
2. Navigate to Privateness & safety.
3. Click on on Suggestions & affords.
4. Toggle off Promoting ID and Personalised affords.

Take note, although, that turning them off will not take away the adverts and recommendations you get on Home windows. They will simply grow to be extra generic as an alternative of particular to you. One other privateness setting you may contemplate altering is app permissions. A few of your desktop apps can use options like your digicam, location, and even contacts to carry out sure actions. However you may select to not give them entry to those options if you happen to do not discover it crucial. As an illustration, you may take away a sport’s entry to your location, or a messaging app’s entry to your digicam if you happen to do not really want these options to make use of the app. This is a fast information to set this up:

1. In Settings, choose Privateness & safety.
2. Underneath App permissions, select a permission you wish to configure.
3. To show off entry for particular person apps, simply click on on the toggle subsequent to these apps.
4. To forestall all of your apps from utilizing that permission, toggle off “Let apps entry your [permission]” as an alternative.

You possibly can then exit Settings, and your adjustments will robotically be saved.