Well I’m quite irritated with some people who (apparently) likes their taskbar being full and cluttered. Not a hate though, just a bit annoyed. Then an idea popped up on my head: maybe they (actually) didn’t knew how to managing their taskbar & other things on desktop. So… this post born created. Without further ado, here is some tips to manage your desktop (and start menu & taskbar too) on Windows 10 for newbies.
de-clutter your start menu
Default Windows 10 start menu is a mess (a lot of mess). Most of the time you did not wanted them (I mean who want to see Microsoft 365 being promoted right when you open start menu?). Take a look at “unmodified Windows 10 start menu” (Right image)
Thankfully, you can unpin all “tiles” to make your start menu look more clean. Just right click on each tiles, and press unpin from start. Its a tedious process, but once you’ve done it, its refreshing.
There are some useful tiles though, especially those who provide “live information” right at the start menu. With a little bit of effort, you can make start menu even better than the “simple”. Take a look at my start menu:
I really like how MS make live tiles on Weather, Mail, and Calendar app. You dont need to go to each apps to see “whats happening today”, you can see right in your start menu. Be careful though, if you pin too many live tiles at start menu, it will lags!
de-clutter taskbar
By default, search bar (on taskbar) takes a lot of spaces. This is not a problem, unless you’re like to open multiple apps at once (which is completely normal). Here’s screenshot of my taskbar without any de-cluttering attempt:
Somewhere in early 2021, MS decided to bring a new “broken” weather info on taskbar. Not only it makes your taskbar look weird, it’s content are also weird. You will find a difference for weather information in Weather apps to the taskbar and to live tiles on Start menu, its so confusing. I’m sure everyone want to deactivate them. To do that, right click on taskbar > News and Interest > Turn off.
Also, if you hate the “bulky” search box, you can make it fit perfectly with other icon by right clicking on taskbar > Search > Show search icon. Last, most people don’t use Cortana, so I think it is better to hide her from taskbar. Right click on taskbar > uncheck Show Cortana button.
Make File Explorer behave more “normal”
Ever since Windows 8 launched, there are a new “ribbon” in File Explorer. Nobody hates it though, as it quite useful in many cases. But, there are also a new slight-annoying features, which is Quick Access on sidebar. After sometimes, it will make the sidebar full of random files you’ve accessed before. To disable this ‘history’ feature, right click on Quick Access item on sidebar of explorer, then click options. In this menu, uncheck “Show recently used files in Quick Access” and “Show frequently used folders in Quick Access”. Log off and sign in to your Windows.
If you don’t like the big ribbon on Windows 10, just double click on the tab and it gone. Beware that in Windows 11 you will be greeted by a new menu like ribbon (not as big as they used to be though).
That’s it for today tutorial, I hope this will help you. Thanks for reading, and see you on another post!
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