Best Tips & Tricks You Need to Know to Master Windows 10

Resize the Start Menu

You can resize the Start menu, making it so that it only takes up a small corner of your screen, or as large as your entire desktop. Just drag from the corners.

Live Tiles in the Start Menu

If you're coming from Windows 8, you know about Live Tiles, the interactive and updated "icons" used to display information like weather, news, and more. Luckily, they're now contained within the Start menu.

Remove Live Tiles from the Start Menu

If you're coming from Windows 7, not only are Live Tiles new, but they may not be all that useful. Luckily, it's a simple process to not only remove them, but to slim up the Start menu so it more closely resembles the view you're used to.

Move & Resize Tiles in the Start Menu

Live Tiles can easily to be moved and resized to your liking so that the information you want is just where you want it. To move a Tile, simply click, hold, and drag it. To resize a Tile, right-click on it, then choose a size from the "Resize" option.

Reboot & Shut Down Options in the Start Menu

Options for shutting down, rebooting, and sleeping your PC are now located in the Start menu. Simply click on the "Power" entry in the Start menu to access these options.

Access All Your Apps in the Start Menu

Possibly the best thing about having the Start menu back is the ability to access all your apps from it's—just click the "All apps" option to see them in an alphabetical list.

Pin Items to the Start Menu

While having a full app list is great, it can be a pain to scroll through if you find yourself constantly opening the same few apps over and over. To make them easier to access, simply right-click on them, then choose the "Pin to Start" option to have placed as a Tile.

Access the Quick Actions Menu

To access the quick actions menu, simply click the Action Center icon in your notification area, which looks a lot like a chat bubble icon. From there, just click any icon to quickly adjust any of its settings.

Customize the Quick Actions Menu

Head to the Settings entry in your Start menu, then choose the System entry. Now go to the "Notifications & actions" tab where you'll see your top four quick action toggles listed at the top of the screen. From there, you'll see a drop-down menu with all of the possible quick actions that you can assign to that spot.

Enable Cortana & Voice Search

Start by clicking the search box right next to the Start button in your taskbar, then click the Cortana icon in the bottom-left corner of the popup, which looks like a circle just above the Windows logo. Accept the agreement and Cortana will be ready to go, but you'll still need to activate the Voice Search hotword.

To set up "Hey Cortana" hotword detection on your computer, click the Notebook icon in Cortana's sidebar menu (which looks like a book with a small circle on the cover), then head to Settings. Now scroll down to the Hey Cortana option, enable it, and click the "Learn my voice" button to begin setup.

Save Locations for Cortana

Like other voice assistants, Cortana works best when she has some information about you. A good place to start would be to set up common locations so that you get better directions and traffic info.

To add addresses such as home, work, and your other favorite places, head to the Notebook menu and click "About Me" again. From here, select "Edit favorites," then click the + button near the bottom-right corner, add an address, label it, and repeat for additional locations.

Set Reminders with Cortana

Saying or typing "Remind me to (blank)" will prompt you to enter a time or location for your reminder, or you can skip the second part by saying it all at once—"Remind me to take my vitamins every morning at 8," or "Remind me to buy dish soap the next time I'm at Target," for instance.

Get Directions with Cortana

This is where having set locations will come into play. You can ask conversational questions like "Get me to the nearest coffee shop," or "How far is it to Chicago," so location-based searching is rather easy.

Get at-a-Glance Information with Cortana

Of course, you don't have to pro-actively search for information—Cortana aims to get you the info you want before you want it.

As soon as you click the Cortana search box—even before you actually perform a search—you'll see a series of cards that display relevant information, which are ordered by what Cortana thinks is most relevant to you at this exact moment.

Create Multiple Desktops

Start by clicking the task view button next to the search bar (or icon) in your taskbar, which will bring up a button in the bottom-right corner of your screen labeled "+ New desktop." Just click this button to create a second desktop, then click it again to create a third, and so on.

Annotate, Highlight, & Insert Notes in Edge

Probably the coolest feature of them all is the ability to mark up webpages in Edge. You can quickly take notes, write, highlight, and even type directly on a website. When you click on the Edit icon at the top right, a purple bar will appear, with tools to draw, highlight, erase, make notes, take screenshots, and share.

Use Reader Mode in Edge

Seeing a page littered with ads, related stories and pictures, and videos can be a big distraction. Luckily, Edge comes with a Reading view that strips all that crap away, leaving behind a clean page with just the important stuff.

Enable 'Do Not Track' in Edge

The "Do Not Track" option in Window 10 is disabled by default, which notifies online advertisers to not gather or use information based on your location and requests. If you want to enable this feature, click on the three-dot menu and go to Settings -> View advanced settings, scroll down and turn on "Send Do Not Track requests."

Keyboard Navigation in Edge

On Windows 10, you can enable caret, or keyboard, browsing by clicking on the three-dot menu, going to Settings -> View advanced settings, and enabling "Always use caret browsing," then turn it on by hitting F7.

Once enabled, you can control the flashing text cursor (or caret) and copy and paste text, as well as open links, without having to use your mouse or trackpad. Disable caret browsing by hitting F7 again.

New Ribbon Menu in File Explorer

Much like recent versions of Microsoft Office, the new File Explorer uses what is called a Ribbon menu. When you click one of the menu options near the top of the screen (File, Home, Share, or View), this new menu will appear.

New Search Feature in File Explorer

The search box isn't new, but now it'll only look for files and folders within the folder or drive you've currently selected, helping to narrow things down quite a bit. Once search results have populated, click the Search tab near the top of the screen to expose more options in a ribbon menu.

Pin Folders in File Explorer

If there are any folders or libraries that you'd like to pin to your Quick access menu, simply right-click them in File Explorer, then select "Pin to Quick access" and they'll be easily available in the left pane.

Libraries Menu in File Explorer

The old Libraries features is nowhere in sight, but it isn't gone. Simply go to the View ribbon menu, then click the Navigation Pane option. From here, select the "Show libraries" entry and it'll be back in the left-side pane.

Get Back Precious Hard Drive Space

When you upgrade from an older version of Windows to Windows 10, a good chuck of your disk space is used to keep old system information on-hand, in case you decide to revert back.

Change the Login Screen Background

Windows 10 sports a spiffy new Login screen with its "Hero" background, but annoyingly, without a way to change the background. But with the help of a third-party app, you can very easily change the background to a color or picture of your choosing (and remove your account picture for a sleeker look).

Disable the Lock Screen

The Windows 10 lock screen is great if you're using a tablet, but for most of us with standard PCs, it's an unnecessary feature. Unfortunately, there isn't a straightforward way of removing it, but there are a couple of methods that are easy enough even for the most-novice user.

Use the Hidden Screen Recorder App

Windows 10 comes with the Xbox app, and within that is a screen recorder function that you can use in other apps.