a particular Widget, click the little three dots in that Widget’s upper-right corner. A menu appears, letting you customize the stocks that appear in the Watchlist Movers window, for example.
Behind the scenes, though, Widgets provides Microsoft with a way to know your interests, which make you more valuable to advertisers. And in today’s technology-based world, that’s increasingly important stuff.
Customizing the taskbar
Windows offers a whirlwind of options for the lowly taskbar, letting you play with it in more ways than a strand of spaghetti and a fork.
And that’s especially important if you don’t care for the new Start menu: By stocking the taskbar with icons for oft-used programs, you can avoid unnecessary trips to the Start menu.
You can add your own favorites to the taskbar, as well. When you spot a favored program’s icon on the Start menu, right-click the icon, and choose Pin To Taskbar from the next pop-up menu.
For even more customization, right-click a blank part of the taskbar and choose Taskbar Settings. The Taskbar page appears in the Settings app, as shown in Figure 3-10.
FIGURE 3-10: Right-click a blank portion of the taskbar and choose Taskbar Settings to customize the taskbar’s appearance and behavior.
Table 3-1 explains the most-used taskbar settings, as well as my recommendations for them.
TABLE 3-1 Most-Used Taskbar Settings
| Setting | My Recommendations |
|---|---|
| Taskbar items | These toggle switches let you add or remove the Search, Task View, and Widgets options. I read way too much news already, so I turn off the entire Widgets panel with a click of its toggle. |
| Taskbar Corner Icons | On and off toggle switches live here, designed mostly for touchscreens, that let you add icons for a digital pen and touchscreen keyboard. I keep these turned off on my desktop PC, but turned on on my tablets. |
| Taskbar Corner Overflow | Another bundle of toggle switches let you choose which tiny icons should appear on your taskbar’s far right edge, and which should be hidden, only to pop up when you click the little upward pointing arrow next to those icons. This is a personal choice, but I don’t like hidden icons, so I let them all show. |
| Taskbar Behaviors | I ignore this overwhelming number of toggles except for one: In Taskbar Alignment, I choose left, which moves the currently centered icons and Start button back to the left corner, where they’ve lived for years. |
Feel free to experiment with this section’s many toggle switches until the taskbar looks right for you. Your changes take place immediately. Don’t like the change, or don’t notice a big difference? Click the toggle switch again to reverse your decision.
Again, most of these toggles boil down to personal preference; there’s no standard right or wrong for everybody. People who run Windows 11 on very wide monitors often prefer seeing their taskbar icons centered rather than along the traditional left side.
Setting Up Virtual Desktops
Others work on a wide variety of tasks and programs, and they meticulously arrange their programs and windows for the easiest access. To please the meticulous, Windows 11 continues with the Virtual Desktops introduced in Windows 10. They’re a simple way of organizing and switching between entire groups of windows.
You can create one desktop for writing, for example, complete with a word processor, notepad, and procrastinator’s toys. A second desktop can be arranged for video gaming, and a third can contain a browser stocked with favorite websites that constantly update in the background. At work, add a fourth for Facebook, so you can quickly switch back to your work desktop when the boss walks by.
Virtual desktops let you switch among these desktops quickly and easily, saving you the time it takes to rearrange the programs and windows to your liking.
To create virtual desktops and work between them, follow these steps:
1 Click the taskbar’s Task View icon.A click or tap on the Task View icon, shown in the margin, and the screen clears, showing thumbnails of all your currently open windows. Just above the Task View icon, shown in Figure 3-11, you see a miniature view of your desktop. To the right of it, a blank window shows the words New Desktop.
2 Click the words New Desktop, and your empty new desktop fills the screen.The thumbnail expands into a new desktop. The new desktop is a replica of your original desktop but without any open programs or windows.
FIGURE 3-11: Click the taskbar’s Task View icon, and the words New Desktop appear above the taskbar.
Some people love virtual desktops. Other people find the whole concept needless and confusing. But whether you love or hate virtual desktops, these tips will come in handy:
To switch between desktops, click the Task View icon. When your miniature virtual desktop windows appear along the taskbar’s top edge, as shown in Figure 3-12, click the one you want.FIGURE 3-12: When the thumbnail of the second desktop appears, switch to it with a click.
To see a virtual desktop’s currently open windows, click the Task View icon. When the miniature desktops appear along the taskbar’s top edge, rest (or hover) your
