Читать книгу Windows 11 For Dummies - Andy Rathbone - Страница 33

The Start menu contains mostly icons — little pictures that represent apps on your PC. The icons consume a lot of space, but they’re not very organized. How can you find your favorite stuff?

Give yourself a fighting chance by organizing your Start menu. The following steps begin with a small dose of organization: removing unwanted apps and adding your own favorite apps to the Start menu’s Pinned area. These steps won’t uninstall any apps; they all remain safely on your PC. However, the Start menu’s Pinned area will be full of apps that match your own interests.

But no matter how organized you want to be, follow these steps to begin turning that haphazard Start menu into your own organized list:

1 Remove icons you don’t need from the Pinned area.Spot an icon you don’t need? Right-click it and choose Unpin from Start from the pop-up menu. Repeat until you’ve removed all the icons you don’t use. (On a touchscreen, hold down your finger on an unwanted app and then tap Unpin from Start from the pop-up menu.) Choosing Unpin from Start doesn’t uninstall the app or program; removing the icon merely removes that item’s “start” button from the Start menu’s Pinned area. In fact, if you accidentally remove the icon for a favorite app or program, you can easily put it back in Step 3.

2 In the Start menu’s Pinned area, move related icons next to each other.As an example, you might want to keep your people-oriented apps — Mail and Calendar — next to each other, and perhaps on the top row, as shown in Figure 2-7. To move an icon to a new location, move the mouse pointer over the icon, and then hold down the left mouse button as you drag the icon to the desired spot. As you drag the icon, other icons automatically move out of the way to make room for the newcomer. On a touchscreen, hold down your finger on the app; when the pop-up menu appears, drag the app to its new position.When you’ve dragged an app’s icon to the desired spot, lift your finger or release the mouse button to set the icon into its new place. Windows 11 no longer lets you change an icon’s size on the Start menu. It also lacks the ability to place icons into groups of folders.FIGURE 2-7: Your Start menu may be easier to work with when the Pinned area only shows your own favorite icons.

3 Add icons for apps, programs, folders, and files you need.I explain how to add icons for apps, programs, folders, and files earlier, in this chapter’s “Adding or removing Start menu items” section. Newly added items appear at the bottom of the Start menu’s Pinned area. To move an icon quickly to the top, right-click it and choose Move to Top from the pop-up menu.After you purge any unwanted icons, rearrange the remaining icons, and add new icons for items you need, your Start menu may meet your needs. If so, stop. You’re done!