Zac Bowden is a news writer and content creator (videos, podcasts) on Windows, who last Friday launched a simple question on Twitter to his followers: What is that insignificant configuration change that you carry out? out on Windows PCs every time you start using one?
Bowden himself mentioned his own little obsession of his: ‘always activate the shadow of the mouse pointer’ . But dozens of users have replied, expressing their preferred settings after an installation of Windows 10 or Windows 11. We bring you here some of the most frequent and / or relevant:
Changes related to Windows Explorer
- Change the folder in which Windows Explorer opens by default: from ‘Quick Start’ to ‘My Computer’ (in the Folder Options) or to ‘Downloads (using Regedit).
- Show filename extensions and/or hidden files in Windows Explorer.
- Disable the ‘Show more’ of the new context menu so that it displays all the options on the first click.
- Add Control Panel to Explorer’s navigation sidebar (using third-party programs).
- Select ‘Details’ as the default folder view in Windows Explorer.
Windows 11 desktop with several of the configuration changes mentioned in the article: [some] buttons moved to the left, unmerged windows in the taskbar, news widget removed, and desktop icons hidden.
Interface changes
- Enable Dark Mode, a trend that Microsoft is taking more and more seriously after years of inconsistencies.
- Hide Desktop Icons: where some confuse it with ‘My Documents’ and ‘Downloads’ and fill it with files, others prefer to be able to enjoy the clear vision of their wallpaper.
- Remove several of the taskbar icons (Task View, Search, Cortana), as well as the new and failed news widget.
- Uncombine the elements of the taskbar, so as not to be forced to display the list of windows of the same program to know how many we have open (this, in Windows 11, requires the use of third-party programs) .
- Move taskbar icons from center to left (exclusive change for Windows 11 that requires using external programs again).
Changes relative to the mouse pointer
- The aforementioned pointer shadow activation.
- Change the mouse pointer to a more visible one (black, bright colors, or the ‘inverted color scheme’, which ensures its visibility regardless of the background color).
- Activate the option to show circles around the pointer when we press the ‘Control’ key.
Replace default applications
- Install a browser other than Microsoft Edge or a search engine other than Bing.
- Replace Notepad with Notepad++ as the default editor for simple text files.
Windows 11: first steps after installing it
Other Windows features
- Turn off all Microsoft telemetry options.
- Set a higher frequency in the creation of restore points.
- Turn off Windows file indexing to improve system performance.
- Disable all system sounds, “so you can turn on your laptop at dawn”, explains one of the users who mentioned this change.
- Change power settings so a laptop connected to an external monitor doesn’t sleep when you close the lid.
- Create an ‘Always On’ power plan for use with apps that take long actions and aren’t smart enough to suppress auto-sleep.
- Change the path of local folders (My Documents, Downloads, Desktop?) to move them to OneDrive, allowing you to have the same files in the same folders on all our devices.
- Turn on ‘Print Screen’ in the Accessibility options as the key to take screenshots with the Windows snipping tool.
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