windows.md

A Guide to a Better Windows

Written and maintained by Noah Kim

In it's default state, Windows is a bit big, bloated, and clumsy. It comes with a bunch of crappy apps and games, fills useful components like the start menu with advertisements and useless tools, and has a hard time figuring out what it should show the user to be properly useful. This guide aims to slim down while making as functional as possible the Windows experience. Let's get started.

Multiple Monitors

1. The first problem you might run into if you have a multiple-monitor setup is that your desktops are out of order; you can't move your cursor across them like you might naturally be inclined to. I have an Nvidia GPU running my rig. In order to fix this problem, I use the toolkit bundled with the rest of the Nvidia ecosystem called nvcplui.exe, otherwise known as the Nvidia control panel. It's located in C:\Program Files\NVIDIA Corporation\Control Panel Client. If you're using a different disk setup, you should be able to extrapolate where this program should be. Run it, and go to "Set up multiple displays", and drag around the graphical representations of your monitors until it makes sense. You can right click on each and select "Identify" to show the number on the corresponding physical screen.

Cleaning up the Start Menu

1. In its default state, there's a bunch of crap on the start menu. We can go ahead an unpin basically everything on the right columns unless you specifically want to keep stuff there. This will make it so that only the application list shows up when you hit the Windows button, taking up less space.
2. Also make sure that if you don't want any of the apps automatically installed on the machine (Candy Crush, Bubble Witch, Skype, etc.), just directly uninstall them by right clicking them and selecting the option.

Cleaning up the Task Bar

1. I prefer to have plenty of space on the task bar. To hide the default search bar, right click it, go to the "Cortana" submenu, and select "Hidden".
2. I also prefer to use the smaller task bar, as it is less intrusive while still providing the same functionality. To use the miniature icon set, go to your settings and into the "Personalization" section. Enable "Use small taskbar buttons".
3. I don't really use the People feature, so I generally just turn it off altogether.
4. Also just get rid of whatever might be pinned to the taskbar by default that you don't want.

More Personalization

1. At this point I usually go ahead and set a wallpaper.
2. You can also tweak the settings in the "Colors" tab of the "Personalization" section. While I like the dark task bar, I also like to make the start menu and the rest of the Windows secondary colors a similarly dark shade of gray.
3. Also set the default app mode to "Dark".
4. If you set a desktop background, also set a lock screen background.
5. Turn off "Show suggestions occasionally in Start". It's just a way for Microsoft to show you advertisements.

Bluetooth

1. If you have a plug-n-play bluetooth adapter, just plug it into a USB slot. It should automatically install the necessary drivers.

Necessities

1. While Edge is actually a pretty underrated browser, Chrome is favored by many. You can go ahead and install Chrome from Edge by looking it up and downloading the installer.
2. Grab Notepad++. It's easy to install and incredibly useful if you ever have to actually edit anything in Windows.
3. Get the Office suite by any means necessary.

Using Multiple Disks

1. If you have multiple disks installed, it's generally a good idea to use them. My preferred setup is an SSD for Window and normal programs, a disk for games and other media, and a disk for backups. This prevents any overlapping disk usage scenarios in my experience.
2. If you install Steam or Origin or any other gaming platform, make sure you set the installation directory to something on your new drive like D:\Steam or D:\Origin.
3. Setting up backups is pretty straightforward, and you can generally just let Windows manage it with file history. I rarely end up needing backups since I use version control for what I work on with a computer, but it's good for literally everything else. Go to the backup settings and add a drive for everything to be backed up onto. Let Windows decide or set the directories to back up yourself, but just make sure you're not doing anything you want backed up outside of the marked directories.