- [Instructor] It's important to get familiar
with the controls that you use
when working in the Windows interface.
We'll start with this row at the bottom of the screen,
which is called the taskbar.
In the middle of the taskbar,
there's this cluster of buttons.
And if you used Windows 10 in the past,
you might be used to seeing a group of icons
on the left side of the taskbar.
But on Windows 11, it's in the middle.
The first button on the left side
of this cluster is the start button.
And when you click on that, it opens the start menu.
And again, if you've used Windows 10,
this start menu does look different.
But it still does everything
you would expect from the start menu.
This is one place where you can launch applications
and access important system controls.
When you want to close the menu like this,
just click outside of it.
We'll get back to some of these other buttons
in just a moment, but first,
on the far right side of the taskbar
is this area called the system tray,
where there are some standard
system controls that you can access.
If you click on the date and time,
it opens the notification center.
Aside from showing a full calendar,
this is also where you can manage your notifications.
Next to that, I see these three icons,
which may be different on your computer,
but when you click this area,
it opens this panel called quick settings.
From here, you can adjust the volume level
of the sound on your computer.
If you connect to the internet through wifi,
you've got settings for that here.
You've got options for airplane mode
and screen brightness, and more.
This just gives you a fast way to adjust
some of the most important system settings.
Now let's go back to the middle of this taskbar.
This button here is Windows search, and it lets you search
for files and other things on your computer.
The desktop button will let you manage multiple workspaces.
And widgets is where you can see your newsfeed
and the single task widgets that you've set up.
But the rest of these icons are shortcuts
to applications that you can launch.
And later in this course, we'll customize this,
so you have the application icons here that you want.
But for now, I'm just going to use a few of these buttons
to launch some applications.
So if I want to open up the web browser, Microsoft Edge,
I can just click this button
and it launches that application.
I'll also open up File Explorer.
And when you open an application,
it is usually represented by a window like this.
One big box where you can work with that application.
You can move windows around, just place your mouse cursor
near the top edge of the window.
Hold your mouse button down and move it around,
and then let go.
You can resize windows.
Just place your mouse cursor on one of the edges,
and you'll see it changes to this double arrow.
You can even move to one of the corners
to get to the double arrow,
and then you can hold your mouse button down
and resize the window.
Next, let's look at these three buttons that appear
near the top right corner of most windows.
And we'll start with this button
that just looks like a line.
This is the minimize option.
So if you ever want to get a window
off of your screen temporarily,
without losing the work you have in that window,
you can click that button and that window shrinks down.
To get that window back, just click on the icon
on the taskbar and that window will come back.
The next button is the maximize button.
And if you click on that, you get something very similar
to a full screen view.
And if you click on it again,
it goes back to a regular sized window.
Now you'll notice if you just point at the maximize button,
there are some other options here
for automatic window placement.
We'll talk about that later in this course.
And then the third button with the X is the close button,
that will close the window.
Sometimes an application will have
more than one window open, and if you close all of them,
that will quit the application.
But naturally, you can launch that application again
to work with a new fresh window.
So those are the basics of working with a window.
Finally, I want to mention
that every application is different,
so they will have different controls.
In File Explorer, for example, we see this toolbar
up at the top with different controls you can activate.
And if I click on the window for Microsoft Edge,
we can switch over to that.
Of course, the interface is different here.
But again, we have a bunch of controls up here at the top.
But I also want you to get into the habit
of looking around for menus.
Often a menu is represented
by a button like this, with three dots.
Click on that and it opens up the menu,
where you have a bunch of other options
that you can activate.
And if we go back to File Explorer, once again,
you can see a button with three dots,
which opens up a different menu.
But sometimes menus look different.
Here's a button with a downward facing arrow.
And if I click on that,
that also opens a menu.
And then here's an arrow pointing to the right.
And if I just point at that, it opens up a smaller submenu.
The point is menus are everywhere,
but there are different buttons to open menus.
You just have to explore a bit,
whenever you learn a new application.
Interacting with windows and menus are sort of like using
the steering wheel and pedals in a car.
These are your central controls,
no matter what application you're using.