- [Instructor] Launching applications is much more efficient
when you customize the taskbar and the Start Menu
to show the applications that you use most often.
Let's see how to get that set.
And I want to start by going into the Start Menu.
And you can launch something from this group
of pinned applications at the top of the Start Menu.
If there's something here that you don't use often,
you can right-click on it and choose unpin from start.
So I think it's going to be much cleaner
if you just remove the icons for the applications
that you don't use very often.
And you can also add other applications here.
It's been my experience that the most useful applications
that come with Windows are already pinned here,
but you might install new applications later,
or there just might be something else
that you want to add here.
To do that, we'll go to the All Apps list.
So I'll click All Apps here
and you can choose anything here.
So how about the camera application,
which you can use to take pictures
with your built-in webcam.
You could right-click on that,
then choose pin to start.
So now, the next time I go to the Start Menu,
at first, I don't see it,
but if I scroll a little bit on this list of pinned apps,
there it is.
Now at this point,
you might want to change the order of these,
which you can easily do by dragging these icons around.
So I can grab this icon and drag it up to the top
and put it exactly where I want it to be on this list.
So take some time to organize your pinned applications
and you will always be able to open
the applications you need very quickly.
But what about the taskbar down
at the bottom of the screen?
You can see I have a shortcut here for File Explorer
and for the mail application and for Microsoft Edge.
You can change these shortcuts too.
But it's a much smaller space,
so this should just be a few applications
you use most often.
To remove one, all you have to do is right-click on it
and choose unpin from taskbar and it's gone.
Now you can still find that in the application list
in the Start Menu,
we've just removed the shortcut here.
And to add something to the taskbar,
well, you'll just need to go into the Start Menu
and you could choose something here
from the pinned applications
and you can right-click on it
and choose pin to taskbar,
or you could even go to that All Apps list,
scroll through all of the apps on your computer,
find the one you want there,
right-click on it, go to more,
and then choose pin to taskbar.
And once you do that,
you have a shortcut for it down here in the taskbar.
And you can change the order of these
by dragging them left or right in the taskbar.
Now not all of the icons in the taskbar
are shortcuts to launch applications.
Some of them are system tools.
You're never going to be able to remove the start button,
but if you right-click on Windows search,
or on desktops, widgets or chats,
you do have the option here to hide them from the taskbar.
So if you choose that, it will remove those icons,
but if you want to get them back later, you certainly can.
You'll just need to go into settings.
So I'll go into the Start Menu.
I'll go to settings.
On the left,
I'll need to go to the Personalization category.
Scroll down a bit and find the sub-category for taskbar.
And I can see those four system tools are right here
and I can turn them on or off from here
to add them or remove them from the taskbar.
With a little experimenting and work,
you should be able to get the Start Menu
and the taskbar organized for your needs.
And in the future, when you install more applications,
you can always go back and pin those too.