The Best Windows 10 Features You Probably Haven’t Heard Of
Windows 10 has arrived. It doesn’t matter if you’re jumping over the edge or still trying to decide if you should upgrade , chances are you’ve heard of some of the best new features in Windows 10 . Here are some of the really cool ones that you may not have heard of.
Find and pin specific sections of the Settings app
Experienced Windows users will understand that Control Panel is where you can find almost any setting that you might want to change. However, with Windows 10, Microsoft is moving more and more of these items to the Settings app. While the Control Panel still exists, the settings are more visible in the Start menu and are easier to navigate anyway.
More importantly, you can pin subsections of the Settings app to the Start menu. For example, let’s say you want quick access to Windows Update. To do this, follow these steps:
- Find “Updates” in the Start menu and click “Check for Updates”.
- This will open the “Windows Update” section in the settings.
- Right-click Windows Update in the sidebar of the Settings app.
- Click Pin at Start.
You can now quickly jump straight to that section of the Settings app from the Start menu with a single click. There is still a bit of a mess as Microsoft moves some things. At this point, Control Panel and Settings still exist at the same time, and Microsoft hasn’t made any announcements that it intends to get rid of Control Panel, but this method of dealing with day-to-day settings is much easier.
Pin Trash to Start Menu
In addition to the settings sections, you can also pin the Trash to the Start menu. For some unknown reason, creating quick access to the shopping cart was a confusing affair . Now just find “Trash” in the “Start” menu, right-click on the shortcut and select “Attach to Start”. Boom. Made.
Clean up your hard drive with the new storage analyzer
From time to time, you will need a decent disk space analyzer to find junk you can get rid of. In the past, we have used third party applications to perform this analysis. Microsoft now has its own built-in storage analyzer. From the Start menu, find the Storage section in the Settings app. From here, you can select the drive to analyze. You will then be shown a list of file types, how much space each category takes, and a list of folders sorted by the size of their content. It’s not as powerful as our pick for the best disk space analyzer , but it’s convenient enough that many users won’t need anything else.
Remove almost any application from the Start Menu
The worst part was uninstalling apps in previous versions of Windows. You can either go through the list of Control Panel apps or download another third-party app for a more thorough installation.
You can now right-click any application in the Start menu and select Uninstall to uninstall it. This includes both traditional desktop applications and new “modern” applications. You can search for an application in the Start menu, or click All Apps at the bottom of the Start menu to see a complete list.
You can also search for Apps and features in the Start menu to get a list of all the apps you have installed. It is similar in many ways to the list of applications in Control Panel, but it has a few additional features – for example, you can only display applications installed on a specific hard drive – which makes it a little easier to use.
Do even more with a redesigned command line
When Windows 10 was first announced, Microsoft announced that Command Prompt would finally support Ctrl-V. However, this was only the beginning. The new console supports highlighting and copying text from the window itself. If you right-click the title bar and select Properties, you can also enable line wrapping for text, filter pasted clipboard content, and even adjust window transparency.
Learn some useful new keyboard shortcuts
The only thing better than keyboard shortcuts is more . Windows 10 comes with a ton of new features, so naturally there are plenty of new shortcuts with them as well. Most of the classic tools still work , but here are some of the newer ones:
- Win + Tab: Quickly view all virtual desktops.
- Win + Q or Win + S: Open Cortana.
- Win + I: Open Windows 10 Settings.
- Win + A: Open Action Center.
- Win + Ctrl + D: Create a new virtual desktop.
- Win + Ctrl + F4: Close the current virtual desktop.
- Win + Ctrl + [Left / Right]: Switch between virtual desktops.
- Win + G: Open Game Bar to take screenshots / record video games.
These are some of the most helpful, but there are a few more on the TechNet tech blog. If you find a new Windows 10 feature that you really enjoy using, chances are there is a keyboard shortcut for it somewhere, so take a look.
Customize notification area quick actions
The new notification tray in Windows 10 is a handy place to find all the apps that are trying to grab your attention. However, there are also Quick Actions, which are handy switches for useful functions. These can include switching location services, opening OneNote to capture an idea, linking to VPN settings, or simply launching the Settings app itself.
The available quick actions will depend on your system, but you can customize them in the settings. Just look for Quick Steps in the Start menu to choose which options appear here. If you have a touchscreen, you can also turn on the switch to switch between tablet and desktop modes.
Lock your computer with your fingerprint
For years, fingerprint scanners have been an expensive toy for early adopters at best. Now that security is becoming more and more important , the average user is looking for better protection options. Phones are already starting to support fingerprint scanners, and Windows 10 now supports them as well.
Of course, you’ll need fingerprint recognition hardware to do this, which most people won’t have. However, some laptop models have them built in, and you can buy third-party peripherals for computers that don’t have them. While it may not bother everyone, we hope that over time, this type of biometric authentication (combined with proper use of a password manager ) will mean the end of manual password entry .