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Course Transcript

Introduction to Windows 10

Windows 10 Story

Interact with Windows 10

Practice: Sync Settings

Course Introduction

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

I am so excited to be talking about Windows 10 with you. In this section, we're going to be looking at the Windows 10 story, kind of, the why behind Windows 10. We'll also going to be looking at ways to interact with Windows 10 – some of the productivity enhancements in that infamous start menu that's back. And we'll also talk about Cortana and Continuum and some of these new productivity improvements in the operating system. But the other thing I want to talk to you about is Windows as a service. And that's a game changer, really, because it's going to change the way Microsoft is releasing new build. So you're definitely going to want to pay attention to that. So let's have a look at the Windows 10 story.

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More Personal Computing

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

My name is Jason. And like many of you, I've been a Windows enthusiast for years. And like many of you, I've been using Windows to get a lot of stuff done. Now you're watching this because I'm assuming you want to learn more about Windows 10, you know. That's what I want to do. I want to talk about Windows 10. I want to talk about the what and the how and the why behind Windows 10. Starting with this, this theme right here – More Personal Computing. Now what exactly does that mean? Well, Microsoft refers to Windows 10 as More Personal Computing as kind of a wordplay on the personal computer of the 80s and 90s. But, of course, this is More Personal Computing because this isn't the 80s and 90s anymore. You see, today the world has dramatically changed. And Windows has followed and evolved and it's adapted to the growing demands and challenges of today's workforce and the way we like to use computers. So let's talk a little bit about that. Let's talk about More Personal Computing and the why behind Windows 10. Now, to do that, I want to begin by going back in time. I want to go back here and look at a Windows timeline – kind of a historic vision or perspective of Windows 10. So, whichever time machine you like to use, so jump in your DeLorean or your Wayback Machine or your Police Box, it doesn't matter. But let's go back in time a little bit and talk about the innovations in Windows.

Now, in this timeline, I am only looking really at the milestones around Windows and not some of the other innovations in computing that occurs outside of that. But I want to start with Windows 95 because Windows 95 really set some important things in place. And it was a lot of innovation, a lot of communication, it was the advent of the Internet. It was also the beginning of the desktop metaphor for Windows and the Start button and that right-click button. I remember actually teaching Windows 95 courses to brand new personal computer users. And using a left button and then using the right mouse button. But, of course, Windows 95 put some things into motion, but it was an aging operating system quickly and we needed to respond to that. So Microsoft actually developed XP. XP proved to be the most popular operating system for the personal computer. And it had a lot of important improvements in it. Do you remember Service Pack 2? That was an historic moment in terms of Microsoft responding to the security landscape at the time. Now, despite the fact that XP was so popular, it's still an aging operating system. So Microsoft went back to the drawing board and rewrote Windows – a soup to nuts build – a total rewrite. And that's where we have the Windows Vista and we have the Windows 7 innovations. Now, with Windows 7 and Windows Vista here, we have a big important improvements around productivity, around security, around the stability for application, and a rewrite at the core of the operating system, far a fewer operating system errors and blue screens, and radically more stable than what we have with the XP because of the innovations inside of Windows 7 and Vista.

Then that brings us to Windows 8. And, with Windows 8, Microsoft refers to it as the first cloud-based operating system. Now, whether you've used Windows 8 or not, you know that Windows 8 has a very different kind of user interface, designed more for kind of the touch screen and the tablet type of environment. Now that brings us to the modern times, right. Because none of these are Windows 10 and yet Windows 10 actually inherits many of these features and characteristics. So that begs a question. Why Windows 10? Well, for starters, Windows 10 inherits all of the great things about its predecessors. The things that we love about Windows, the ability to get things done, the multitasking, the security, the productivity, the Start button...well, all of those are built into Windows 10. But more than that, Windows 10 is designed for today. It's not just a mashup of previous operating systems. It's innovation. Its familiar experiences with fundamental improvements in order to respond to this current present day. Now what does that mean? Well, today is very different than 1995 and very different than 2005. Today we have a proliferation of devices. I mean just look around. A personal computer is no longer that IBM-based box sitting there on your desk. Well, you can actually put it in your pocket now. And Windows 10 is designed with the mobile device, the explosion of devices. It's designed with the diverse form factors that are out there. It is designed with the mobile device in mind. It's designed for today.

What does that mean? Familiar experiences. Windows, the Windows that you love. Mobile experiences – taking Windows with you wherever you go. And a variety of different form factors and doing stuff on Windows, doing stuff for work, doing stuff for home, and doing stuff like playing Angry Birds. In fact, Windows 10 is designed to run on appliances and gadgets as well as large form factors and large screens like this. Windows 10 is intended and designed to run on any kind of device. Now, when we consider these important key factors down here, these highlights of what Windows has brought to us. When we consider Windows 10, these words actually take on a whole new meaning, when we consider Windows 10 for today. When we talk about communication today, we're not talking about e-mail, we're talking about collaboration. We're talking about social media. And Windows 10 is designed to take advantage of those collaborative applications. When we talk about programs and we talk about security, well, we're thinking now with Windows 10 not just about our local corporate network or a home network. We're thinking about the cloud network. And we're thinking about accessing applications in the cloud. When we think about productivity, it's not just about that right mouse button anymore. It's about talking to the computer. And then, when we talk about performance, it's not about just the biggest and baddest processor. We're talking about saving battery life. And those are the types of innovations and improvements that Microsoft has brought to Windows 10. So, when we ask a question why Windows 10, Microsoft's answer is Windows 10 is designed for today.

And that's where we get More Personal Computing. The idea being that we're using Windows 10 in new ways and in old ways. The idea being that Windows 10 is the PC of the past, but it's more than that. It's a PC designed for people and designed for businesses, designed to run cloud applications to secure data – not just data that's sitting on a hard drive, but data in motion. It's designed to help people get stuff done using productive applications, collaborative applications like Office 365. That's why when we talk about why Windows 10. We can say, well, Windows 10 is all about more Personal Computing. And that's one of the reasons why many of us have loved and come to love Windows 10 is because of how powerful it is, how familiar it is, and how easy it is to use.

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One Windows

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

So how has Microsoft accomplished this experience of More Personal Computing with Windows 10? Well, key to More Personal Computing is "one Windows". Now, when we say one Windows, this isn't just marketing a phraseology, there is actually quite a bit to this one Windows idea. Let me explain. First of all, Windows 10 is cloud powered. Now this is important. By cloud powered, we mean that you can actually get Windows 10 from the cloud. It's not dependent on the ISO material or DVD media. Not only that, you can get your applications from the cloud, your services from the cloud, your updates and patches from the cloud. Your data can be stored in the cloud or secured by the cloud. Collaboration can occur through the cloud. And you can actually join Windows 10 to the cloud. Just like you join it to a domain, you can join it to the cloud.

Now the reason why this is so important is because so many of our devices today allow us to move from device to device to device. And we can be on our laptop using SharePoint or accessing Office 365 and the next moment, we can be – you know – using our phone. Microsoft recognizes this. And so the cloud plays a very important role in making the experience of Windows 10 mobile. Now I'm not talking about mobile devices. I'm talking about the experience being mobile. Because it's the person that's mobile, right. It's the person, the user who is going from device to device to device, who wants their data, who wants their settings, who wants their access to their pictures and an access to their applications. They are the ones that are mobile. And so Windows 10 is designed with that reality in mind. So Microsoft says Windows 10 is Cloud First and Mobile First. Now how do they accomplish that? Now this is an important point. And that is Microsoft redesigned this Windows 10 with a converge unified experience in mind. And, as an example of that, we have one Windows Store. You see in the past with previous generations of Windows, like Windows 8, there was a Windows Store for the desktop and laptop where you would acquire, you know, modern applications, and what they used to call metro applications. And that was a different store than when you were playing your Xbox and downloading games and that was a different store than the Windows phone. Today, with Windows 10, those different stores have been unified and converged together. And this means that regardless of what device you're on, you have access to those different applications. So we have one store for all of these multiple devices.

Now how are they able to do that because there is a big difference between the phone and the Surface Pro and the Desktop and the Xbox and the Surface Television – Surface Hub they call it? There is a big difference between those different devices. This is important. Key to this whole concept around what Windows 10 is doing for us is the refactored kernel, one Windows. The reason why one Windows is a significant game changer is they refactored the kernel so that the actual Windows kernel that runs on the phone is the same kernel that runs on the Surface Pro. It's the same kernel that runs on your desktop. It's the same kernel that can even run on the server. Lot of things that these devices actually have in common. Even though the devices are themselves very, very different, they all need to conserve battery life. They all have a need to access those applications in that data. And so Microsoft refactored the kernel, designed it so that it supports multiple form factors. And, as a result, we have a vastly different way we can approach our computing experiences.

This means we have connected experiences, powered by the cloud. This means that we can roam from device to device and users can experience or access their data. They can get what they need done, but they can also play, they can also access those photos. And Microsoft has designed Windows 10 to interact with each other, to use the cloud to power those experiences, and to be able to do that securely. And, to do that not just for the consumer, but also provide ways in which organizations can provide that connected experience for their corporate users. It's not limited to just the retailer or the Windows enthusiast, it's also available for businesses who want to collaborate and provide application access through the cloud and to the cloud or even with on-premise services, the services in the mobile device management suite that comes without Windows 10 supports. You see, it's a changing world, a different world than it was in 1995 and very different than it was in 2005. And Windows 10 is postured to take advantage of today's innovation, but still give users the good classic Windows that they come to expect.

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Windows 10 Editions

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

Now, even though we mentioned that it's one Windows and that is a big and important point behind the Windows 10 story, there are multiple editions to Windows 10. Now, when we refer to Windows 10 editions, we are talking about the stock keeping unit or the SKUs. This gives various consumers and users choices as to what Windows 10 version is going to be right for them. So, like previous versions of Windows, we can choose between a Home edition and a Business edition. Let's just look at this. Now the best way to get a feel for exactly what each of these different SKUs offers is to actually do a comparison. And the way I like to do this is I like to go to the web and look at the various comparison charts that are available. So let's do that. So I'm going to come over here. And I'm going to jump over to Microsoft's web site and Wikipedia and others have some great charts as well that I like to look to. But we're going to do and look at Windows 10 editions and compare them from microsoft.com. And you can see here that they've got kind of two different approaches. We have the Core Experiences and Business Experiences. And so this is specifically talking about what is available in most of your editions for Windows 10. And so you've got Start menu, you've got important support for things like Battery Saver, TPM support, we'll talk more about that later on in other topics, but that's for security and Secure Boot.

We have Cortana. Cortana is one of the exciting innovations in Windows 10 where you can actually talk to your Windows 10 device. And then it's a personal assistant. Notice that's available in all three of those editions we were talking about. Plus the other edition here is the Education edition for schools, as the name implies. We have improved security such as Windows Hello. So this is facial recognition as well as fingerprint recognition. We have multitasking. We have Microsoft Edge, which is a new browser built into Windows 10. So these features here are all core and you can see that they are all available in each and every one of those editions. Where we see a difference is when we consider in the business and we consider, you know, corporate needs. So, in this case, we're looking at joining domain, well, that's specifically only available to Pro and Enterprise edition and Education, okay. And, with joining the domain, we have specific management options available such as Group Policy Management. Other important improvement here is Enterprise Mode Internet Explorer, that's for compatibility. So that's only available in Pro and Enterprise. Remote Desktop, Client Hyper-V, those are only available in Pro and Enterprise.

Kind of scroll down, we can see that there are Enterprise or Education specific features. So, as I said earlier, Direct Access is exclusively Windows Enterprise. AppLocker, BranchCache, now you may not be real acquainted with what each one of these is. Direct Access is similar to a VPN, but it doesn't require the user to initiate it. AppLocker locks out applications except those which you've explicitly allowed. BranchCache uses a shared cache to save the bandwidth on branch offices connected to like a headquarters office with a slow WAN link. So it improves kind of the usage of a WAN link. And those are situations that are not going to be common to a Home user, right. The Home user is inside a remote office and isn't going to hassle with the intense security that comes with AppLocker. It's unlike way, I should say, the average Home user is concerned with these types of technologies. So those are reserved or offered through these other SKUs – the Enterprise SKUs.

Now we can go in and kind of scroll through here and go point by point through these other key characteristics. The general idea though that you're getting is that the Enterprise edition is the full featured one. And by full featured means is it includes features that are specifically designed for the enterprise and for corporations. However, the Core Experiences of Windows 10 is available to everybody regardless of what edition that you are on. Now there are few other editions as you can see here that we've been looking at. In addition to Home, Pro, and Enterprise, we also have the Education edition. And let me just flip back over to my slides. So we talked about Windows 10 Education. This is that edition for schools and universities. Well, we also have Windows IoT Core. Now Windows IoT Core – IoT stands for Internet of Things and so this is a Windows 10 that can actually run on Raspberry Pi and other types of small Internet of Things circuit boards for appliances and gadgets and for makers creating all kinds of existing technologies that require the computing power and processing know-how of an operating system like Windows. So Windows 10 can actually run on these very small and specific form factors. Not only that, Windows 10 also is designed with the phone in mind. Now, even though it's the one Windows story, so you have the same Windows 10 kernel, Windows 10 Mobile, and Mobile Enterprise is specifically designed with the phone in mind. So there are innovations here in regards to the way a smartphone works. Nevertheless, you're going to experience very similar types of technologies across all of these different editions of Windows 10.

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Windows as a Service

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

I want to talk to you about another important aspect of Windows 10, another game changing concept, characteristic of Windows 10 and that's Windows as a service. Now this has created a lot of confusion. Microsoft has done a good job of putting a lot of information out there to help clarify that and that's what I am going to try to do for you. And let us talk about what is exactly Windows as a service. Now Windows as a service is a big shift from the way that Windows was serviced in the past. And, when we mean service, what we're talking about here is features, updates, patches, hot fixes, but also new functionality. You see, in the past, Microsoft had this two year cadence, so Vista would come out and then two years later, you would have Service Pack 1 and then two years later, you would have Windows 7 and then two years later. That whole two year cadence is gone. Now you can expect to have new functionality in Windows every three or four months. New features being dropped into your desktop, laptop, or phone every three or four months. This means you can have the latest and greatest features without waiting for a Service Pack to come along two years later. It's an entirely different servicing model than we had in the past. Now I know you have questions. So we need to talk a little bit more about what this means – Windows as a service.

So let's begin with this question. What is Windows as a service? And let's start with a textbook definition. So look at this with me. Windows as a service is a new servicing model. This is delivering new features and bug fixes from new and existing updating services. Now keyword here. These updating services target different servicing branches. And these different servicing branches are developed for the diverse needs of consumers and organizations. Now let's break this down a little bit. Now, because we have these two different devices that are so different from each other, an organizational tension emerges. On one hand, we have those devices which have dynamic needs. We want them to have the latest and greatest. And, for an organization, that might mean having the competitive edge and to do this of course without a lot of complexity. On the other side of our tension, we have those devices which are special function and need more control, minimal disruptions. And that's because they have longer support cycles, they have mission-critical jobs that they're doing, and time is needed to test them and certify them to ensure that they can do those jobs and they stay within compliance.

Now Microsoft offers specialized servicing branches for these two types of devices. On one end, we have Windows Update and this isn't much different from what we already have out there on the consumer space. This is what is called the Current Branch. And, from the Current Branch, everyone including consumers and small businesses and even larger organizations can retrieve the latest features and go to the next version of Windows 10. Over here, to ensure that these devices don't experience disruption, we can actually control when those updates are released with services like WSUS and Configuration Manager. This is called the Long Term Servicing Branch. And a Long Term Servicing Branch is a special edition of Windows 10 Enterprise that ensures that these devices stay within compliance and they have that longer support cycle. Now not every device fits in either one of these categories. There is actually a whole classification or category of devices right here in the middle. These are those business devices. These are devices that are important, but maybe not mission critical. These are the devices that might need flexibility on this side. Then again, they might need some stability over here on this side. So they are in the middle. They might need the latest features, we might need additional time to test them. We're still concerned about things like compatibility, but we're also concerned about adopting new features. We're concerned about time and cost.

[The personal devices require immediate servicing. These type of devices are available in large numbers and are ideal for consumers and BYOD. The special function devices do not require immediate servicing and the services may delay. These are sensitive and certified devices with high stability in providing medical, financial, transportation, and manufacturing services.]

The burning question for these devices is which one of these servicing branches is best for them. The Current Branch or the Long Term Servicing Branch. So, for those devices in the middle, Microsoft offers a servicing branch called the Current Branch for Business. And with this Current Branch for Business, there is a specific delivery mechanism designed for these business devices called Windows Update for Business. And this is new. I like to call it the WUB. The WUB is specifically designed for those devices that fall squarely in the middle of this organizational tension between the personal device and those special function devices. So what exactly is the WUB? Well, here are some key characteristics. First of all, you have what are called roll out rings. In other words, organization to have control over when Windows features are delivered to those business devices using roll out rings. So kind of like what you do with WSUS today, you can within your organization create different computer groups. Here we're creating different roll out rings, so you can have the canary ring, the testing ring. And then you can have those first adopters, those organizational insiders, those eager beavers, if you will. And then you can have other rings for other parts of your business. So you can stage the delivery of specific features. There is also support for maintenance Windows, support for peer-to-peer delivery. And then there's integration with existing tool such as WSUS and Configuration Manager. So you have a lot of a richness from a management standpoint that you would expect or you would need, but you also have the ability to adopt the latest and greatest without having to wait two years.

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How Servicing Branches Work

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

Now let's take a look at how the Current Branch for Business fits in with the other servicing branches. Now, for starters, we have Microsoft Internal. So, when new features come out, they get tested internally by Microsoft employees. And there are thousands of these folks. Then those features are released to members of the Windows Insider Preview group and anybody can participate with Windows Insider Preview. If you're Windows enthusiast like myself and you can actually elect to be a part of the slow or fast ring. And, by fast ring what this means is that you can choose between having the latest and greatest updates, but one who is a little bit less risk adverse and wants a latest. Once it's been out to those members of the fast ring, then it's distributed to the slow ring. And then what happens is those members of the Insider Preview provide Microsoft feedback about what they loved about it, what they didn't love, what worked, and what didn't work. So millions of individuals have tested these features. And after that, it gets released here to the Current Branch. The Current Branch is the main release of these new features. And you can expect this every three or four months. Here these features are delivered to the broad hundreds of millions of Windows users – both business users and consumers. And it's done primarily through Windows Update. Once it has been released out there to those hundreds and millions of users, it's eventually made available to the Current Branch for Business.

With Current Branch for Business, now we're talking about not so much testing those features and those patches as much as we're looking at compatibility for our organization. Does that particular feature work for us? And this is where the WUB fits in. Windows Update for Business is Microsoft's recommended way of managing those updates for your business. And you have those features as we described – those internal enterprise rings and maintenance Windows as well as integration with familiar servicing tools like WSUS. Now not to leave out Long Term Servicing Branch. Long Term Servicing Branch, remember for those special function devices and these devices are the ones where we're going to delay these features for two or three years. Current Branch for Business gives you some delay ability. As an administrator, you can opt out of the latest features, but you have a limited amount of time. Microsoft says, you can roughly delay these features and not adopt them for about eight months or so. After that, you fall out of compliance and may not have support any longer. So you've got some period of time that gives you the control how you want those features to be released and gives you some time to test them. For those devices where you need more than eight months of a delay, then you have to consider the Long Term Servicing Branch. Now, when we're looking at these, the Long Term Servicing Branch isn't something that applies to any additional Windows. In fact, a Long Term Servicing Branch is specific to the Enterprise edition. So these other servicing branches are supported by Windows Home and Windows Pro and Windows 10 Enterprise. The Long Term Servicing Branch is actually a special edition of Windows 10 Enterprise.

Now this slide helps you understand where those editions fit in terms of the servicing branches. So Windows 10 Home, this is the consumer channel – the BYOD scenario. This category has available to it the Current Branch. So this is where those patches and those new features and new Windows 10 functionality will be released to the hundreds and millions of users. Windows 10 Pro and Education, you have available to your Current Branch but also Current Branch for Business via the WUB, right. And then Windows 10 Enterprise – we have Current Branch, Current Branch for Business, but then that's special LTSB edition for those special function devices. I want to make one other comment about that. The LTSB edition – if you install it, you'll experience something different than you do on other Windows 10 devices. You'll discover, for instance, it doesn't have a lot of the built-in applications. It doesn't have Microsoft Edge, the new web browser. And that's because Microsoft knows that if it's an LTSB device, then the assumption there is it's going to be delayed. It needs to be stable and you're not using it to browse HTML 5 web sites. Instead, you're using it for, you know, manufacturing or for hospital work or some other very specific type of work. So that's another key characteristic or difference there with the LTSB edition.

So, in summary, this is a significant departure from the way Windows used to work. Instead of having features and updates rolled up into a big operating system released every two years, now new features have been released with far more frequency – every few months – a lot like what we would experience with a phone operating system. And so with Windows 10, we can expect to see new features. And, if you want to get on the latest features, you could join the Windows Insider Preview. It's free to everybody. But, for those of you who have to manage other people's devices – specially for the business or if you have a very special function device – Microsoft gives you ways of delaying those updates and features so you have time to test them against those devices and to ensure that you're able to deliver your mission without interruption or without a lot of complexity.

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Start Menu and Personalization

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

So now time to take a look at interacting with Windows 10. Starting with the Start menu – good place to start – and the personalization settings. Now, to really understand what Microsoft has done with Windows 10, you need to understand this concept of a refreshed UI. See Windows 10 is a lot like previous versions of Windows, but they've added some additional productivity enhancements and this includes things like virtual desktops and task view. These are things designed to help us with multitasking. Then we have the Action Center, which helps us consume information at a glance and look at our latest reminders as well as make some changes to the system really quickly if we need to. Then our personal enduring assistant Cortana. And then this idea of continuum. Now continuum is an interesting concept and that has to do with the fact that Windows 10 can actually adapt to the different form factors. Of course, there are many other important productivity enhancements. But there is one outstanding question that a lot of people have regarding Windows 10, especially if you've been using Windows 8, because if you remember Windows 8 didn't have a Start menu. Does Windows 10 have a Start menu? Yes, indeed it does.

So let's actually have a look at this. Because I want to look at the Windows 10 desktop and talk about some of these productivity enhancements. So first thing we're going to do is we're going to move my mouse down here and you can see that we've got that Start button down there. And it's not just the Start button, it's also the Start menu. Look at that. Now I am a Windows 8 user as well as a Windows 7 user. And, in Windows 8, we had the full immersive screen with a lot of live tiles happening. And then, of course, Windows 7 had the traditional Start menu. And what you see here is you see a mixture of those two. You see a Windows 10 Start menu – with live tiles in there – giving you access to applications, giving you access to a lot of important tasks like being able to jump in and grab your files, being able to shut down the system and all driven from a very familiar place – that Start button. And you can also change and switch accounts. So up here, if I click on my account, I can jump into my account settings, I can Lock the account and still use some of the classic keyboard shortcuts as well. And I can just Sign out, if I don't want to actually restart the machine. Over here under File Explorer, I can click on this. Or this is little arrow and what this does is that brings up what are called jump lists. Now, in Windows 7, you could access these jump lists by going to the taskbar and right-clicking on the item. That's the way we did it in Windows 7, you can do that here in Windows 10 as well. Additionally, though we have this arrow that shows me my jump list. And so I can see those items which I want to have frequent access to. These are pinned items. And then those items which I am accessing on a regular basis, that's listed right here. And I can hit this thumbtack and move it to the top of this list here or untack it.

[The presenter opens the Start menu. The Start menu is divided into two sections. The top of the left section contains the icon for the user Jason Yates. Below the icon, there are two sections, Most used and Recently added, which contain a list of applications. Below the sections, there are different icons such as Settings and Power. The right section contains live tiles. The bottom of the Start menu contains the search text field.]

Now the other thing I can do is find applications and that's really what the Start menu is all about, right. A Start menu is...it's really an app launcher, so it's about finding the apps that I want or starting the applications that I need. And so here I have the All apps menu. And, when I click on that, I see a long list of applications, including those applications at the top here which were recently added. So this is a thing that would kill me on Windows 8. I had installed an app, but then I wouldn't exactly know where it is. I get lost on the Start screen. And, in the early versions of 8, you would have to scroll to find them. With Windows 7, it can be sometimes just as annoying when you're trying to find an application because when you've got these cascading menus – and sometimes depending on where you are pointing – there would be collapse on you. Here you can see those application too easily with this Recently added. And then you can find other applications, all sorted for you and alphabetized. And, for quick access, look at this. Just click on the heading there. And, once you click on that heading, you don't have to scroll down to the bottom for finding those applications which start with W, you just hit W and there you go. Windows Administrative Tools or whatever it is that you're looking for, alright there. Now what about these live tiles? This might be new for many of you who have not used Windows 8 much. The whole idea behind the live tile is to give you information as quickly as possible. Plus it's very aesthetically pleasing in many ways. Some people really like these. Showing you photos and updating the news and information. Right there, we can see the weather, right, 88 degrees in Washington DC.

Now you can actually customize these and personalize the Start screen – if you want to – and these live tiles. So you can come in here and you can right-click on them and turn them off, so you have just the static icon. Or you can right-click on them and turn them on. And you can also Resize them, unpin them, move them around, or pin them back down here to the taskbar. And so you can launch applications not just from the Start menu but also from the taskbar Classic Windows going on right there. That's Classic Windows, great. Things that I want, things I would expect, help me get going quickly and not have to spend a lot of time hunting around for things. So I can customize these. The live tiles allows me to see things. And another important point I should make is that what is nice about the live tiles is how large they are. I mean I use touch screen everywhere. I love touch and Windows 8 really corrupted me on that. And it's great that Windows 10 has continued on with these live tiles because I use Windows 10 on a variety of devices. I use it on small tablet like this. I also use it on my phone. And I also use it on my touch screen laptop. And those live tiles make it easy to launch the applications and interact with them without having to use the mouse. Mouse is helpful for those discrete areas and corners and that kind of precision that a particular application might require. But, when it comes to quick access, I just love using the touch. And so that's another reason why these live tiles are part of our Start menu.

Now let me mention one other feature here that I loved about Windows 7 – it's still here in Windows 10 – and that's Instant Search. I love the fact that I can just hit the keyboard right in the Windows key, enter type in, and finding what I want, and immediate results are pop up. That's the case here. So watch this. I'm going to hit the Windows key and I'm going to just start typing. I am going to say food and I can instantly start seeing some results that come up here related to food. So I can search the web, I can see that there are some applications in the store, and other results would include things like my e-mail. There is an e-mail reply that includes mentioning of food that would show up in my results. If I had files, I could show up in my results. So we've got Instant Search very much like Windows 7. The thing is Instant Search in Windows 10 is powered by Bing and it's also powered by Cortana. And the two of them allow me to get some important information off of my system, but also retrieve information from the Windows Store or from the web or wherever that information might be that I am looking for. Because in today's age, my information isn't just on the PC, it could be in the cloud, it could be on the social network, that kind of thing. So having a comprehensive search is there and having quick results is there. And I really love that Instant Search.

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How Do I Personalize Windows 10

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

So the next question. How do I personalize Windows 10 to make it mine, to move things around, so I can find what I need quickly? Well, there are several things you can do to personalize it. I get a brand new operating system. There are like two places I would like to go. Number one, I would like to go check out the latest background images, right, latest pictures, love those. And with Microsoft Bing, I have some great photos there that's included as wallpaper to choose from. The other place I would like to go is I would like to look for some games and then make any kind of personalization adjustments to my account. And Windows 10 is changing that. Because I can change by personal picture and my wallpaper. And I can adjust and customize and personalize the Start screen as well. So let's have a look at ways in which we can personalize Windows 10. So let's go back into where we were earlier and that's the Start button. And there are several things I can do here in my Start menu. I can adjust the size of the Start menu with this double-headed arrow. Just go moving it up and down, or shrinking it like so. So, if I prefer having those things in a much more kind of narrow band, I can do that. The other thing that I can do in here is I can jump into account settings and other personalization settings that affect the way that the information is presented and how it looks.

Now I am in what is called the Settings application. Now there are several ways of getting into the Settings application. That's one way and of course this took me right into my account settings. And I can personalize my account picture here. So I can create an additional picture, I can Browse for a picture, I can add an additional count if I want to, that might include its own settings. Other things that I can do include hitting this Back arrow and choosing Personalization. This is another part of the Settings application and this is where I can go and then change my background. Change perhaps a photo that I am using including the ability to Browse for my own photos. These are the kind of things, if you've used Windows at all in the past, you're probably quite familiar with the idea of doing that or changing your wallpaper. It's still there, it's just in a different place. It's in the Settings application, Personalization category here.

[The presenter clicks the icon for the user Jason Yates and selects the Change account settings option. The Settings window appears. The top of the window has Back button on the left and the Minimize, Maximize, and Close button on the right. In the window, the Accounts page is open by default. The page is divided into two sections. The left section contains five options: Your Account, Sign-in options, Work access, Family & other users, and Sync your settings. The right section shows the page of the selected option. By default, the right section shows the "Your account" page. The presenter clicks the Back button, and the SETTINGS page appears in the Settings window. The page contains "Find a setting" search box and different icons such as Personalization. The presenter clicks the Personalization icon, and the Personalization page opens in the Settings window. The page is divided into two sections. The left section contains five options: Background, Colors, Lock screen, Themes, and Start. The right section shows the page of the selected option. By default, the right section shows the "Background" page. The presenter clicks the Lock screen option in the left section. Now the right section shows the "Lock screen" page. The page contains the "Choose an app to show detailed status" and "Choose an app to show quick status" sections. In the "Choose an app to show detailed status" section, the presenter clicks the Plus icon, and a drop-down menu appears. From the drop-down menu, he selects the Weather option. In the "Choose an app to show quick status" section, the presenter clicks the Plus icon and selects the Mail option from the drop-down menu and then clicks the another Plus icon to select the People option from the drop-down menu.]

Colors, I can change my color. So look at this, automatically pick an accent color. Let's hit on there and It just picks an accent color changes that for me. If I want to...and what it does when it does that, by the way? It looks at my background picture. In this case, I chose this picture of somebody jogging on the beach and it pulled the oranges out of the picture and said, "Hey, that's an accent." If I chose a different picture, let's choose this underwater picture, notice that my accent color changes to this other blue here. So I can either have it automatically choose a color or I can manually pick which color I want to use as my accent color. And that changes – you know – the way information is presented, the way these tiles are presented. I am going to do this to suit my taste, alright. There are other visualization settings I can change. I can go in and change the Lock screen. And the lock screen is an important part of Windows because it's not just locking it, it also shows me some information like the time. I can also configure applications to push some data like if I have some e-mail and I will get some new mail in my mailbox, well, then I can have those applications give me a detailed status or a quick status. And it shows a little bit more information with detailed status. So I can click on this and I can say, well, let's have the weather up here. And so it's kind of show up with the little bit of information about the weather here on my lock screen.

[In the left section, the presenter clicks the Themes option, and the Themes page appears in the right section. The page contains the Theme settings option and Related Settings section. The Related Settings section contains three options: Advanced sound settings, Desktop icon settings, and Mouse pointer settings. In the left section, the presenter clicks the Start option, and the Start page appears in the right section. The page contains different switches such as Show most used apps, Show recently used apps, Use full screen, and Show recently opened items in Jump Lists on Start or the taskbar. The page also contains the "Choose which folders appear on Start" option.]

Then I can have other applications giving me some notice information. So I can have like a notification that's a mail has come in and arrived. Notification that I have, this is some social networking application, so I can have some maybe somebody posted on LinkedIn or I've got a recent follower on Twitter. So those kinds of notifications can occur with the right application selection. The interesting thing here is it's showing up on the lock screen. So the idea here is Microsoft is trying to make every part of Windows meaningful for the user and productive. So we just pick up your device and at a glance you can see, oh, look I got some mail. Oh, well, that's the weather or what have you. And that way you get the information that you need pushed down to you rather than you having to go in and dig around and trying to find it. So that's meant to improve your productivity. Then in terms of screen timeout settings and screensaver settings, those are also found here in this lock screen. You can change a theme. So, if you want to, you can click on this and grab a particular theme. If you're familiar with Windows, again this is a same kind of thing we would do in Windows 7. So, in this case, I am going to go ahead and select this default Windows 10 thing because it think it is pretty cool – the smoky glass thing going on. Or you can – you know – choose these pictures, whichever your preference. And then you can download additional themes from Microsoft's web site. Over the years downloaded some interesting and some fun ones and some really beautiful ones. When I look at it, I know hey, that's mine. That's my desktop, I am logged in, I got a familiar look and feel going for it.

Alright, so then I click on Start here and this is where I can actually personalize Start. Show, I can Show most used apps. Now what that is in reference to is if I hit the Start button, there is Most used right here, it's a section right here, okay. So I have got frequently used – or I should say, Most used – then Recently added. So I can turn those On or Off. Now notice that there is no OK button or anything. In many cases, this has happened immediately and it's very similar to the type of configuration you might make on a phone. So, if you're using a phone and you're changing a setting in a phone, you're not likely the to hit OK or Apply, that's a very Windows type of configuration from the past. Microsoft has adopted a streamlined approach to making many of these configuration settings. So I turn those Off. Now, when I hit the Start button, those things have disappeared. That's a lot of wasted real estate there, so I like showing those. So I am going to go ahead and click on those. Speaking of wasted real estate, if you really want to kind of get the full Windows 8 experience. So, if you're someone who really loved that large Start screen, you can actually enable something very similar to that and that's this option here – Use Start full screen. I click on that and now watch what happens when I hit the Start button.

Look at that. So now the live tiles are nice and big. And, if I had more than two sections here, I could scroll back and forth. And then the option to hit all apps is found in this menu here. It gives me this pull in menu where everything kind of slides to the right and this all apps menu is pulled in. So I can scroll through this and hide it back into the margins with this Back button. And then hamburger menu right here, I can click on that and that also brings this up for me along with the ability to see those frequently accessed areas. File Explorer, here's another place to get into that Settings app. Here's a place to Power the machine down, so I can go back into the Settings tab and I'm going to turn that Off there.

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Personalization

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

Now you can further customize the Start menu with this option – Choose which folders appear on Start. So I can click on that. And you can see there is File Explorer and Settings. So that's what I get by default is these two options here. That can be altered by coming in and saying, well, let's add Documents to that, let's add Downloads to that. And, as you scroll down, you can include many more common folders, Network settings, and you can add those. I like Network, so I'm going to click on that and there we go. So, if you want it, you know, you can turn all of those on and then remove most used and recently added. But this gives you one-click access to areas that you might need to jump in and look in to and discover files, folders, or whatever business you're up to, okay. So couple of settings there relate to personalizing your Start menu, good stuff there. Now let's talk a little bit more about personalizing the tile portion, these things over here. Now you can unpin them and no longer include them there if you don't want to. You can Resize them, so they can be large or small. So watch here. If I choose Resize, I've got four different sizes here. So right now, it's Wide. I can choose Large, all right. I like photos. So we're going to Resize that to make it Large.

[The Personalization page is open in the Settings window. In the page, the Start option is selected in the left section and the Start page is open in the right section. In the Start page, the presenter clicks the "Choose which folders appear on Start" option, and the "Choose which folders appear on Start" page opens in the Settings window. The page contains different switches such as File Explorer, Settings, Documents, and Videos.]

Now this is a new system. And so I don't have any photos at the moment, but if this was my home system or one of my personal tablets here, you would actually see photos rolling through here because another important part of Windows 10 is the availability of connecting to the cloud. And I am using what is called a Cloud Account – a Microsoft Account. So my login is a live account. It could be Hotmail, could be outlook.com, okay. So you can actually create one of these accounts for free. And that includes a free connection or free space on Microsoft's OneDrive. And in there, you can store photos. And so you'll see photos rotate through here as part of the live tile, pictures of that birthday, that receipt you needed to take there, or that fun moment when you were on the beach or whatever you use your photos for. Then this photos tile would kind of rotate through those popular photos. And those photos can be stored in the cloud or they could be stored locally. And it gets fun when I set up a new device and I turn on synchronization. After a little while, I am coming through the Start menu and there it advertises a picture of one of my kid's smiling face and that makes this device mine. It's personal to me, it's home to me, if you will. And so that's an important part of this idea what the mobile age is about because we use our devices in such personal ways. We use them with our social media and talking to our friends and talking to our parents and interacting with our kids as well as doing stuff for work and for business. And so Microsoft has created this live tile environment that's fully customizable and going to give you a very personal experience.

Now, not only that in terms of changing the size, I can also move things around, I can categorize things. So this is called Life at a glance, that's the default name. But I might want to call it PERSONAL or Some Other Name. You can actually create other groups if you like. So I can grab this guy Camtasia, move it over here and that creates an entirely new group. Like so...so you have the ability to create these tile groups to name them, to change the size of the tiles and move things around. Now one comment I want to make about right-clicking. Right clicking is one of my favorite ways to interact with Windows. Man I love the fact that you can get a lot of stuff done quickly and there are a lot of great shortcuts to place this into settings using the right-click.

Now, on a touch screen, you can perform right-clicks by simply taking your finger and holding it down. So, if you watch here, if I right-click here, it brings up the menu. But instead of doing that, what I am going to do is I am just going to hold it down. And, as I hold it down with my finger, okay, you can see that the form has kind of changed, everything kind of doled out a little bit. And now I've got this ellipses, this little menu on the bottom right-hand side. And, if I hit on that, that brings up a similar type of menu that I got when I right-clicked and then I can hit more options there. So even on a touch screen device, you still have that hidden context menu available to you in the right-click. And so I can do that by just holding my finger down on the item – just a little bit longer. And that works virtually everywhere. I love that, I love that, I love that.

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Sync Your Settings

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

The next thing I want to talk to you about is the synchronization feature in Windows 10. And this goes to what I was saying earlier about my pictures, about the fact that I can have photos on my different devices and they can be synchronized. It's not only photos, but it could be my theme, it could be some other customizations, it could be my web browser settings. Let me tell you a quick story. At one point, I was on my Windows 10 Yoga. Okay. I have a Lenovo Yoga. I love that device. In fact, it's right here. And I love this device because it's a two-in-one type of device. And so I can use it like a laptop. I can also fold it over and use it like a tablet if I want to. And I was on this device and I was working on some work-related stuff, and I wasn't able to find what I needed to find. I was trying to actually access one of our corporate extranet sites. And so one of the great things about the synchronization is I knew I added where I needed to go in my Favorites, but I was on different device on my desktop. And nevertheless, I went to Favorites and there lo and behold, it was there. And that was because my Favorites settings were synchronized across my different types of devices. And that's one of the huge benefits to this cloud first, mobile first, Windows 10. So let me show you a little bit about the synchronization settings that are found in Windows 10.

Now the place that we go to make some of these customizations is at Settings app. And so you've probably already seen me do this, where we go to the Start menu, we can go to Settings that's one place. The other way of getting to the Settings app is to hold down the Windows key and hit the letter I – it's a keyboard shortcut – and that brings up the Settings app for you. Now, to configure synchronization settings I'm going to go back to ACCOUNTS and there is a category called Sync your settings. And here I can enable or disable synchronization settings. And this includes settings for the web browser, for passwords, for other types of Windows settings, so I can enable those if I want to. So that's going to allow me to be able to have experiences like what I described earlier. I'm going to go ahead and turn on a couple of these. Now you might have a different need on another system. There might be a situation where you don't want data to be synchronized with that particular device. So you can see I have the option to turn off or disable synchronization. You might also have an additional concern about privacy. So let me show you where that can be found. If I go and hit this Back button here, there is a whole category related to privacy. And so, if I click on Privacy, this allows me to come through and control what kind of information that my system might be sharing with Microsoft or between my devices.

[The presenter opens the Accounts page in the Settings window. In the left section, the presenter selects the Sync your settings option, and the Sync your settings page opens in the right section. The page contains the Sync settings switch and Individual sync settings section. This section contains different switches such as Theme, Web browser settings, Passwords, and Other Windows settings.]

So like Location...Location is something that if you work with a smartphone, you're aware of the ability for a device to have a GPS component in it. And then to be able to have applications that leverage that information like especially navigation applications or mapping applications. Windows is no different. A lot of Windows devices and Windows 10 devices they have GPS software built into them, and then you can install location-aware applications. But, if you're concerned or the device really isn't using those location services and those types of applications, you can actually disable that particular feature. You can actually come in and clear Location history and then you can specify on an application-by-application basis, which applications can actually use that location information. So Microsoft gives you a lot of control in regards to Privacy settings, Location setting is just being one example of that. Now there are other features in Windows 10 where you can control these Privacy settings around. It's an opt-in security model or privacy model.

[The presenter clicks the Back button, and the SETTINGS page appears in the Settings window. The presenter clicks the Privacy icon, and the Privacy page opens in the Settings window. The page is divided into two sections. The left section contains different options such as General, Location, Camera, Microphone, Account info, Contacts, Calendar, and Other devices. The right section shows the page of the selected option. By default, the "General" page is open in the right section.]

So, if I go to the Camera, it's a same idea here. I can control which applications are able to use my Camera and which ones are not. I can control which ones are able to use my Microphone and which ones are not. I can control inking and typing type of information. So this is going to be where Crotona is going to learn specifically some of my nuances with my voice and try to make suggestions on my behalf, and whether or not I want her to track that kind of information, I can control that. Let apps access my name and my picture and other account information. If I'm really concerned about that, I can turn that off. And then include it is the ability to dig in deeper around the Privacy Statement. Now I can keep going and click on all of these categories. But you're getting the basic idea that each one of them allows me to control specifically, you know, relating to an area of information or an application or hardware on this system, and whether or not applications are able to share information with each other or share information with other devices.

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Multitasking and Windows Explorer

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

Now, in this next section, I want to talk about multitasking and using Windows Explorer. And in many regards, some of this is old stuff – stuff that you've done before – and the exciting thing about that it's familiar and you are accustomed to working with multiple windows. In fact, this is one of the hallmarks, right, of Microsoft Windows. It's namesake even and Microsoft has done a great job of creating a multitasking platform. But Windows 10 actually adds to this with specific new features to enable you and I to be more productive when we want to multitask. What are those new features? Well, we have virtual desktops and we have Task View. This is the ability to have additional windows open in kind of a side-by-side parallel universe. So you can switch between these two different desktops or universes for different types of views. But then you still have some important multitasking techniques that have been around a little bit longer like Snap, which was introduced in Windows 8. Taskbar that has been introduced, of course, in Windows 95. And then just some classic ways and some new ways to switch between those applications.

[To do multitasking in Windows 10, use Snap, Taskbar, App switching, Virtual Desktops, and Task View.]

So what I'm going to do now is let's have a look at some of these multitasking features in Windows 10. Now the first thing I want to point out is that like other previous versions of Windows everything is windowed. So we can open up even our Settings application so here is our Settings app and it's got a window. And then we can open up our browser and this is Microsoft Edge and it has a window. So we've got more than one window there. And let's bring up the Weather app. Now, if you used Windows 8, this is actually new because Windows 8 would have a full screen kind of experience. In other words, the Weather application would open up full screen and a lot of these controls here would be gone. Now they made some adjustments in Windows 8.1. And as you can see here based on a lot of customer feedback, they've adopted the very kind of windowed environment everyone expects and it's been used in Windows 7 that's seen kind of a re-emergent here in Windows 10. And the reason it's helpful because it's very intuitive. I mean you can see that's where we close it. This is where we can maximize it. You can still do the double-click up there. So even though you don't have one of the same look and feel that you have with Windows 10, you have a lot of the same kind of elements including the title bar and the like.

Now I've got multiple windows open. What can I do here? Well there are several things. For instance, I can adjust the window size, which is great. I can maximize it to make it pretty full screen. I can also swipe with my finger on the side of my screen and that shows me the different windows I actually have opened. So this is an app switcher. In Windows 8, you would get to this by going to the top-left corner of your screen. They have made it easier here with Windows 10 that you just kind of you're swiping to the side and you're seeing the screen here. The other thing you can do is you can use good old Windows+Tab. Get to that app-switcher environment by hitting the Windows key and the Tab key at the same time. Now Alt tab is application-switcher keyboard shortcut that goes all the way back, I think to like Windows 3, Windows 3.1. And so that's also still available. So again, my friends, we've got familiar experiences and we've got new experiences. And so this is going to help you stay productive. You're not spending hours trying to figure it out. You can use the skills that you've learned from Windows 7 and multitasking in previous versions of Windows and apply those immediately to Windows 10. And then there is also some new ways to do things that you might prefer.

All right. Now the other thing we can do in here is Snap. And Snap...there's several ways we can snap. Snap was introduced with Windows 8 and was improved in 8.1 and we have it here in 10 as well. So I'm going to drag. And, if you see my screen, there is a slight effect that happens, there's glassy look that shows you where it's going to snap giving you preview. If I like go over my mouse, it snaps to the left-hand side of the screen. Now what it's new in Windows 10 is a fact that when I do that, all of the other windows I have opened are displayed to the right-hand side and Windows 10 is automatically asking me, "Do you want to snap too side by side?" Now this is great when you have to do a comparison. You've got a spreadsheet on one side and a Word document on the other or an email, what have you, and you want to do a side-by-side comparison. Well Snap makes it very easy to do that. You just, you know, drag it to the left or drag it to the right and then you choose the other application that you want to snap. So, in this case, let's say we want to snap my web browser. So I click on that and now they're both side by side.

But there is more. I can also snap this to the top right-hand corner. So I dragged it up to the top right-hand corner. Now it's taking up 25 percent of the screen over there. And once again, Windows 10 is saying, "Oh, there's still space. Do you want me to go ahead and snap another window to that bottom right-hand corner?" And I click on that and say, "Yes." So that's a great thing about Windows 10 and its anticipating, what I might need and giving me choices. And so I can make those choices quickly and in a very intuitive kind of way. Now I can adjust those windows here. I'm not stuck with Weather app, which is an improvement in Windows 8. The original Snap was kind of locked in fixed dimensions. Here I can actually adjust them. In most application Windows, they work really well, you know, just about any size...some application Windows might vary depending on the app. All right. Great.

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Multitasking

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

Now I have some things that were first introduced in this step that I still enjoy using. So there are a few things here that we continue to work with. So, for instance, we have the ability to do what is called Aero Shake. So that's ability to shake this window and it minimizes everything. So, if there is a particular window that I want to pay attention to, may be I'm teaching a class and I've got a lot of other windows opened and I only want focus to be on this window, then I just shake it and all the other ones will be minimized. If I shake it again, well, then it comes right back. So I'm going to do that, I'm going to shake it again, and there I restored those windows. That's actually a Vista feature but it's here for me as well. The next thing I want to do or show you is Aero Peek – again, another Vista feature and Window 7 feature. And that's the ability to take my mouse along the taskbar and just take my mouse and then point. Now notice, why I'm pointing? I'm pointing at the taskbar and then I'm pointing at the window that pops up. So I'm getting out Peek of the application window, and it's not an icon, it's displaying for me exactly what that current window looks like. And, when my mouse pointer hovers over it, it actually hides everything else and gives me exclusive visual focus of the application that I have an interest in. So same thing here with Windows Explorer. I can point at that. And so I've got quick Aero Peak that's also available to me here in Windows 10. I just really love that.

[The Settings, Internet Explorer, and Weather windows are open.]

All right. Now I actually have some features here that go all the way back to Windows 95. So I have the ability to right-click and cascade windows. I used to love to do that and show students how to do that where you can right-click on here and you can stack your windows. So you still have the ability to do some kind of quick window adjustments here just using your right-click on your taskbar and using these features right there. So you can adjust them. You can fit them. You can use Snap. You can use Cascade. And, if you have multiple monitors...this is great as well, of course, because these commands including Snap they work across multiple monitors. Now I want to mention the keyboard shortcut with Snap, because I use this all the time especially with multiple monitors. So, if you have more than one monitor, the way that you can actually snap say, this Windows application here – this Weather app – is you hold down the Windows key and then you use your arrows. So Windows and the arrow key left will snap this to the left. If I have a multiple monitor side by side, if I hit subsequent left arrows, it will just move across those monitors into different positions. And so you can just keep hitting the Windows key and the arrow keys to adjust them across multiple monitor. So I can hit Windows, arrow left like that. And then, if I did it again and I had multiple monitors in the setup, then we would see it go across to the other monitor. In this case, it just wrapped around on the same screen. I'm not using an extended view with my multiple monitors right now, because I'm teaching and we're doing these demos. But you can do this at home and check this out. And so the up arrow and the down arrows work. And so you can even hit the down arrow and minimize them if you want to. All right, isn't that great?

[The presenter right-clicks the Taskbar and selects the Cascade windows option from the flyout.]

So now let's look at some new features that come in Windows 10. We're going to talk about task view and virtual desktops. And that is this guy right here, this task view and this virtual desktop. So what would I do? When I click on that, what I have is I have again the different windows that I have opened, okay. This is similar in some ways to the app launcher screen, but I have got this New desktop button down here. So, if I click New desktop it brings up Desktop2 here. So I have got Desktop1 and I've got Desktop2. So I can switch between these, like so Desktop1, Desktop2. And one of the things I can do is I can actually move windows to different desktops. Now this is very useful because it gives you another dimension, another way of kind of grouping open windows.

[The presenter opens the Task view window. The bottom left corner of the window contains a Plus button to add a new desktop.]

So that, you know, even if you have multiple monitors, you still might be in a situation where you have to maybe sort between personal and work or this project versus that project. And so you can use this virtual desktop and the ability to move Windows to different desktops, so that you have kind of a partition. It's similar to like when you go to a hotel, you know, have a conference room and sometimes they'll have a partition that run right in the middle of a conference room. This is one structurally or one room but they've partitioned it off. In many ways, I've got a single log on session, but I have got two, three different desktops here and that's going to enable me to a kind of partition my workspace and have different windows in different desktops. So this is virtual desktops. It's a continuation. And other operating systems actually have this, but this is here available to us in Windows for the first time without third-party software.

[In the Task view window, the presenter drags the Weather window from Desktop 1 to Desktop 2.]

So, for instance, let me click back over here. And what I want to do is I want to drag Weather to Desktop2. Then I want to drag Settings to Desktop2, okay, like so. And now, when I hit Task View, I switchover to Desktop2, there is my Weather application, there is my Settings. Isn't that great? Okay. Now there is an old combination of different keyboard shortcuts. So if I do Windows+Tab, Windows+Tab brings me that app launcher – a screen – and the ability to choose new desktop. Another name for this is Task View, that's the other name for this so Windows+Tab. Okay. The other thing that I can do here is I can also close down a desktop. So let me show you what that looks like. So I'm going to do Windows+Tab. I'm going go to this other desktop here. And then, if I hold down the Windows key and Ctrl key and hit F4, I can actually close the current desktop. And so, when I click on this, notice I'm no longer have that additional desktop open but I can, you know, create it again if I need to.

All right. So that's the other way of doing that. So there are a few keyboard shortcuts that you can use. Let's make another desktop. And there is a keyboard shortcut for that. Let me start with that. So we'll do Windows+Ctrl+D and that brings up a new desktop. Let me do it again. See, I'm creating some desktops. And then Windows+Tab shows me those desktops. And then I can rotate between them if I do Windows+Ctrl and right arrow – Windows key, Ctrl, right arrow – there we go there. And then Windows key left arrow. All right. It doesn't actually wrap around, so that's something to be aware of. But it does let you toggle through. And so you've got several keyboard shortcuts that relate to using a Task View and virtual desktops.

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What's New in Windows Explorer

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

So the next thing we want to look at is we want to talk about what's new in Windows Explorer. In Windows Explorer, as you know is kind of the bread and butter, the primary way we work with our data, so folders and files and drives we do a lot of that through Windows Explorer. And, in Windows 10, we have additional enhancements that were introduced to us from Windows 8 and that includes the Ribbon – you've probably worked with the Ribbon, right. You've seen it in Office, so it has been extended to Windows Explorer and we have that here. Integration with the OneDrive application. So that's cloud storage, depending on what license or subscription you have. It can be anything from like a personal connection to OneDrive for Business – used to be called SkyDrive but its name is officially OneDrive. And then there is some changes, some enhancements that's come with Windows 10 and that's Quick Access. Now I really like Quick Access. It's very similar to like what we have with the Start menu. You click Start and there are your frequently accessed applications, right. And so Quick Access does that for me for my files and folders.

And then we have the Share contract. Now Share contract, it's just a sharing button and it used to be part of Windows 8. I mean Share contract is in Windows 8 in the form of what is called a shared charm. So we used to have a Charms bar. Charms bar has gone, that's not part of the Windows 10 UI. No more Charm. Instead what we have is this thing called the Share button or Share contract and it took some of the functionality out of the shared charm, which I really loved, and they've now integrated it into the applications and into the Explorer window. The reason I like the Share contract is because it makes it really easy to share information that you come across. So, if you're in a web site and there is like an article and you are like, "Oh, this is great," one of the processes there is to go up to the address bar and to copy it. And then you open up your social media web site or your application and then you paste it in there or you open up e-mail and you paste the URL in there, that kind of thing. Well, the Share contract is meant to make that easier, so you can share directly into your mail application in a similar way that was available in Windows 8 without having to use the Charms bar. So let's have a look at some of these new features in Windows Explorer.

[The File Explorer window is open. The top of the window contains a ribbon. The top of the ribbon contains three tabs: File, Computer, and View. On the "File" tab, there are three groups: Location, Network, and System. The Network group further contains the "Add a network location" button and Map network drive and Access media drop-down list boxes. Below the ribbon, there are Back, Forward, and Up buttons, Address bar, and Search box. Further, the window is divided into two sections. The left section contains different expandable nodes such as Quick access and This PC. The right section contains a subsection Frequent folders.]

So another demonstration here for us. Now Windows Explorer can be found right off the taskbar that's what this folder button here is. But I can also get to it from the Start menu, right here, File Explorer and that's there by default. So we can click on that and open this up. I'm going to go ahead and maximize this with the double-click. So now what we're looking at is we're looking at the File Explorer window. So first thing I want you to take note of is the Quick access right here in the top left-hand corner. And you have for starters, Quick access to your Desktop folder, to your Documents folder. And then you have the ability to right-click on this and to directly interact with this and manage this file including the ability to, you know, pin it to the Start menu if you want to; dig into the Properties of that object if you want to; and even unpin it from Quick access if you want to. And just like you can unpin, you can also, you know, add things to Quick access. So here's my Music. And I can right-click on the Music folder. Right now it's pretty boring, I don't have any music in there. But I'm going to right-click and pin to Quick access with the expectations, and I'm going to put some great music in there. All right. So that's Quick access and it is there for the very reason, it's name to Quick access. It's there for Quick Access. There you go. All right. Now additionally, the Quick access here is my OneDrive connection. Now this is popping up and asking me if I want to include certain folders in my OneDrive, yes or no, OK. Then that with those deselected, so it's not going to synchronize or cache any of those files locally, where that gives me access to my OneDrive content.

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Windows Explorer

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

Then I have got the PC here, so I can browse my PC. One of the first questions my father-in-law actually asked me about Windows 10 is, "Hey, I'm trying to find my DVD. Where would my DVD go? Because he is so used to going to Start and choosing My Computer. And there is nothing in here that said My Computer. He wasn't aware that it was available to him under File Explorer, and then by going in and clicking on This PC. So it's there. There is his DVD Drive and access to other types of network locations, and removable storage, and other types of devices. So a very familiar view I hope for many of you and it's there in File Explorer now. So I can actually dig into my Network. And, if I have Homegroup – just, you know, personal work groups setup at home, I can access that there. Now the ribbon is all of the things that we see up above here in a very, kind of, toolbar Esc way. Toolbars, of course, are kind of a classic way Microsoft presents controls so that I can, you know, access tools and perform actions. As you can see, I have got a very similar type of capability. But, you know, nice big buttons for my touch screen and easy readability, like mapping a drive, it's a kind of a split bifocal kind of button, so I can just click on the top portion to actually kick off the wizard or I can be more specific with the bottom portion and choose...all right, I don't want to actually map a drive, instead I want the alternative here. And that disconnects the network drive. So you have that ability with some of these buttons. Now that is a context sensitive ribbon. So what that means is depending on what you're actually clicking on, that menu or the ribbon will change.

[The File Explorer window is open. The left section contains different expandable nodes such as This PC. The right section contains three subsections: Folders, Devices and drives, and Network locations.]

So watch what happens if I click on Documents. I'm going to double-click on Documents, will open it up there. Now that I am inside a specific folder here, I have got options relate to managing files. I have options relate to moving my files, deleting my files. I have options relate to perhaps exposing and digging into additional properties and working with my files. So for instance, if I choose the View portion here. Okay. I am on the View tab. I have got another context, and this includes going to Options and finding folder and search options. Now as an IT pro, this is an important area. So this allows me to come in here and actually view classic folder options, including the ability to hide or unhide file extensions. Hide or unhide protected operating system files. And this list here, there is one that's common to IT Pros who need to find that hidden application file, that INI file, that configuration file that's been suppressed from casual viewing. Well, here you can actually unhide it. And that's where you locate it, its folder options.

Now there are other settings here that relate to customizing File Explorer, clearing the File Explorer history, if you want to. Applying some of your changes across multiple folders, there is Apply to Folders button. And the ability to control some of the search options and search locations. All right. There are some quick actions that can be done like, File name extensions, on or off; Hidden items, on or off. The operating system's hidden items still requires you to dig a little bit further under those folder options. And then the ability to turn on or off different views, so like turning off Preview pane, which can be really annoying over a slow network connection. Everything stops and you're waiting for the preview to be pulled down so you can turn that on or off right there. You can also click on Share. So, if I click on this folder and open this up and we find a file actually. Let me go back. Let's go back to Pictures. Here is a fun picture. Let's click on Share. Okay. So now, the reason I took you here is because you'll notice in the top left-hand corner of this window is there is the Share button. And that's the share contract I was telling you about. So I can click on that and notice on the right-hand side, the Share window slides out. This is very much like the way it worked in Windows 8. And what I can do at this point is select applications that are being configured to work with the share contract, in this case, includes mail. It could include other types of applications. So, if you use like an MP3 file or an application specific file, I might see other options appear here on the right-hand side, messaging applications, in this case my Mail application.

I have the option that control classic sharing. So this is where I can come in here and actually use a classic sharing. What I mean by classic sharing is folder sharing. So I can come in here, turn on or off sharing in regards to sharing permissions. And that's really a topic for another section. But that's available to me right there. In fact, if I go to a folder, let me bounce back here to Documents and I got a folder and I choose Share. I can click specific people and I bring up the File Sharing window. And this is different than the share contract, because we're not sharing through an application. Instead we're sharing through classic Windows network-share services called the file and print sharing service technically. The point of all of that is just to talk a little bit about how Explorer has been enhanced with the ribbon and enhanced with quick access option. There are a lot more things going on this screen that we haven't talked about. So for instance in Windows 7, they had this thing called breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs are still there. You can see here, I can still see the breadcrumbs view. You can still click on these arrows and leap into another area if I want to. I love breadcrumbs, great feature. I have got search capability here. I have the ability to choose recent locations with this little arrow here. So there's a lot of functionality squeezed into some small spaces. And this is ideal, right, for the desktop user. And the ability to be able work with folders and files. But the ribbon also lends itself to touch screens because everything is nice and big.

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Action Center

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

Okay. Now for something entirely new, this is called the Action Center. Sounds like something maybe on a sports news, talk show, or something. But no, it's inside Windows 10. It's available to everybody and it's there to help you find information quickly and make changes quickly. Key question is what is the Action Center? The Action Center gives you information so that you can consume it at a glance and also chase information that you see, so you can take a responsive type of action. So important pertinent stuff related to the system, related to your applications, related to what you do inside of your system – they all show up here in the Action Center. Really the Action Center, kind of, replaced the position of the old Charms bar in Windows 8 that is the right-hand side. So, if you swipe on the right-hand side of your screen, you don't get any more charm, instead you get Action Center. And so you can see here as an illustration, we've got this: "Wildfire sweeps across California." Fire season in the summer time, and so we've got some news and notification. We've got, hey, updates were installed. Now, when we say chase information, what we mean by that is we can actually in Windows 10 click on "Updates were installed" to learn about what updates were installed. Or this right here Security and Maintenance, this is giving me some information that "Hey, there are a couple of applications on your system that slowed down Windows 10 a little bit – you know, took an extra two seconds to initiate." And so this will if I clicked on this, take me into where those applications are listed showing me their start times and then I could disable those applications. And that might help improve my performance.

So that's what it means by chasing information and taking action. Let's look at the actual Action Center on a live system here. So right again, back at the desktop. And as I said earlier, you can just swipe to the side and that brings up the Action Center. Now on this system, what we're seeing are a couple of things. We're seeing that, because I have logged into a brand new system, this is a new system I've logged in using my cloud credentials. It wants me to verify my identity and it does that as a precaution. So it's asking me to confirm that it is really me. So that's something I would have a follow-up action to do. And there is disable apps to improve performance. And then I've got some other important notifications about, for instance, the ability to connect to the wireless network, the auto play category there, and then there is a panel of buttons there at the bottom. And you can either reveal this entire bank of options that you see here, you can either reveal any of these, or you can just show the first row. So, if I wanted to, I could actually collapse that. And so now, what you see is just the four bottom ones and then you've got the rest of some of my notifications here.

[The Windows 10 desktop is shown. The presenter opens the ACTION CENTER pop-up box. The pop-up box is divided into three sections: Security and Maintenance, Wireless, and AutoPlay. The bottom of the pop-up box contains different icons such as Tablet mode, Rotation Lock, Note, and All Settings. The Security and Maintenance section contains two warnings, Verify your identity on this PC and Disable apps to help improve performance. The presenter clicks the Disable apps to help improve performance warning, and the Task Manager window appears. The top of the window contains three menus: File, Options, and View. The window contains a table. The table contains different application names and their publisher, Status, and Status impact information. In the ACTION CENTER pop-up box, the presenter clicks the All Settings icon to open the Settings window.]

Now this is what the Action Center does best. It gives me information at a glance and allows me to chase after that if it's of interest. So for instance, if I want to...well let's pick one of these, let's say disable apps. So I'm going to click on that. There we go. And so we can see we've got three different applications. And I've got my OneDrive, which was taken a long time to start up, probably related to that credential issue. And then, a built-in multi touch application here. And so one of the things I could do is I could click on this and then I could disable it down here if I wanted to. I'm not going to disable that right now. Look at that, it took last BIOS time, look at that 6.2 seconds. So this is great, because it's giving me some information. As a technician, this is really valuable information letting me know what kind of actions I might want to take to improve performance. All right. Let's close this guy down. Let me go back over here and use my surface machine here with my mouse. So couple of other things I want to show you are this is yet another way to open up the Settings application and come in here and interact with it here. The other thing I want to show you is you can bring up the Action Center with this little notification button there. And then there is a keyboard shortcut method. The Windows key and the letter A will allow you to bring up the Action Center. So there is a few ways in which you can bring it up.

You can also come in here and customize these buttons and specifically control what four buttons show up here on the top row. So I have a VPN. So, if I want to initiate a VPN, if I want to interact with my wireless connections, if I want to toggle on or off those location settings, if I want to adjust the brightness of my screen, I can do that here. I can interact and turn on airplane mode. So just like a smartphone, if I have the Surface Pro that I'm running this demo on and I'm at, you know, Airplane and I want to make sure that, you know, they make the announcement over the intercom, you know, the stewardess or steward says, "Hey, you need to turn on all your devices to airplane mode." I can do that, I can come in there and I can flip on airplane mode, which, I know, turns off Bluetooth and Wireless and makes my device safe for flying. Okay. So some important things there related to the Action Center. Now I can further customize this thing by going into the Properties. We do this, so I'm going to right-click here, go to the Properties. And then under Notification area, choose Customize and then that brings up the system settings. This right here, Quick actions is the ability to control what actions appear on that top row. So here is Tablet mode, here is Rotation Lock, here is Settings. Let's say, I want to get rid of Settings, I can do that. And let's say, I want to put instead a Bluetooth, so we're going to put Bluetooth there.

[The presenter right-clicks the taskbar and selects the Properties option from the flyout. The "Taskbar and Start Menu Properties" dialog box appears. The top of the dialog box contains three tabs: Taskbar, Navigation, and Toolbars. The Taskbar tabbed page is open by default. The tabbed page contains the Customize button. He clicks the button, and the SYSTEM page opens in the Settings window. The page is divided into two sections. The left section contains different options such as Display, Notifications & actions, Multitasking, and Tablet mode. The right section shows the page of the selected option. By default, the Notifications & actions option is selected in the left section and the Notifications & actions page is open in the right section, which contains three sections: Quick actions, Notifications, and Show notifications from these apps.]

Now, when I bring up the Action Center and I choose Collapse, notice Bluetooth is now on the bottom corner of my screen. I replaced it from this notifications & action section. Now controlling what kind of notifications appear, the system settings also allow me to do that with these toggle buttons. So show me tips about Windows, show me app notifications, notifications even on my lock screen not just the Action Center. And then, if I'm doing a presentation, I'm in Presentation mode, then what I can do is hide those notifications. I can be specific on an application-by-application basis, show notifications from these apps. And this should also suppress application toast notifications. A toast notification is notification that just kind of pops out of the side, independent of the Action Center initially, allowing me to take notice. Like for instance, if I am having a severe weather warning or something like that, I might see a toast notification or if I add a new device, I plug-in a removable device. It might give me a pop up saying, "What do you want to do with this device?" Those are the kinds of things that we would describe as a toast notification.

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Cortana

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

So let's talk now about one of my favorite features and that's Cortana. Now Cortana, what is Cortana? Well, Cortana is your personal assistant. Cortana was actually named after a character in the popular Microsoft game Halo. And she was adapted to Windows 10. And she is not there for video game so much as she is to help you remember the things you need to remember. I'm one of those guys who drives by his exit about once a month. I lose my mind, I lose my keys, I lose my phone. Now Cortana may not be able to help me out with a lot of that, but she can help me out by reminding me of the appointments I have coming up. She can also help me find where I'm going and how to get the next exit. And of course, try to make it on time. Cortana can also be very useful in dictation. So I can use it on my phone and have her send text messages for me. Cortana is personalized to me and she has a notebook where I can store information and configuration settings that I want her to know about me and then she can respond based on that body of information. So this allows her to track my preferences and my interest. So let's have a look at Cortana, shall we? Hey, Cortana, what is my name? Jason. Jason, she knows my name. Now, when you first login to Windows 10 and you go and set up Cortana, she we'll ask you a few questions about yourself. But you can go in...right here, I'm going to take my mouse, and I can actually click on this and I can go in and I can start configuring some of the specific settings around Cortana if I want to.

[The Cortana interface is open. On the left-hand side of the interface is the menu bar consisting of four menus: Home, Notebook, Remainders, and Feedback. The bottom of the interface contains a Speech-to-text recognition text field. The presenter clicks the Notebook menu to show the different options that are available. These options include About me, Connected Accounts, and Settings.]

So for instance, I can click on Notebook and I can see about me. And so then I can click on this and then I can change my name if I want to and help her know about where my favorite places are. I can also come in here and view things about Reminders and provide feedback if I want to make recommendations. Now the Feedback part is basically a way of closing the loop with Microsoft to say, "Hey, I really like this feature, can you improve on that?" So not necessarily related to what we're talking about here with Cortana. Let me give you a few other demonstrations of Cortana. And that is the ability to actually say, "Hey Cortana." And when you do that, that actually will verbally trigger her to respond and listen to you and listen to your queries. So here is an example. Hey Cortana, how many calories are in a banana? So you can see here she responds with the Bing search, telling me what I need to know. Hey Cortana, I need a recipe for banana bread. I love that and I love good banana bread. Hey Cortana, tell me a joke. How do you catch a runaway laptop? With an Internet. Took her a little bit there, but she got that one – how do you catch a runaway laptop.

Now, in order to enable that Hey Cortana feature, what I can do is click on the Cortana menu here, and then click on Notebook and then there is an option called Settings. So I can click on Settings. And then right here, the Hey Cortana option, now this is turned off by default on your laptop here in or your desktop. But I turned it on here so that she could listen and respond to me when I say, "Hey Cortana." Notice she has the option to track flights for me. She has the option to look in taskbar tidbits. So this lets her basically pipe up with information than I'm typing into the search box if I wanted to. So she can interrupt me, if you will. Let's do a couple of other examples with Cortana in action. Let me go ahead and close this down. Hey Cortana, what is my next appointment? Next from 5:30 to 7:00 PM, you have Ballet. I have got Ballet. Well I had no idea. Actually, that's right off of my calendar. My daughter has a Ballet class coming up. So that's fantastic. But I can also use Cortana not only to learn about what is on my calendar, but I can add things to my calendar too.

[The presenter asks Cortana a question "how many calories are in a banana?" As a result, the Bing web page opens in a browser. The top of the web page contains a search box. The search box contains the text "How many calories are in a banana?" Below the search box, the different search results are shown.]

Let's try this. Hey Cortana, add an appointment for tomorrow at 5:30. All right, what do you want to call it? Meet with the President. Sure thing. I'll add the President to your calendar for tomorrow at 5:30 PM. Is that right? Yes. I've added it. By the way, you have Ballet at the same time. Oh, brilliant. Thank you so much Cortana. Now I know I've got a conflict on my schedule. And that's going to be really helpful to me. Cortana, hey Cortana, what is the traffic like? Here's the traffic near you. Hey Cortana, where is the nearest fitness center? Oh, look at that, fantastic. I can get my workout in, maybe, before my Ballet class.

Hey Cortana, do an impression. My precious. She loves Lord of the Rings. I'm loving her already. Hey Cortana, play a song. Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. Hey Cortana, what is better, you or Siri? I think we're both pretty clever. You are indeed. Hey Cortana, open up my Camera. Sure, starting Camera. So Cortana can be used to help you launch applications, add reminders, add appointments, learn about your schedule, find resources, learn about the traffic.

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Continuum

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

Now the next thing I want to talk about is Continuum. Now Continuum has nothing to do with space, time, or anything like that. Continuum has to do with the fact that Windows 10 adapts to the different form factors. And what that means is, if you have two-in-one device or if you have a phone and you plug it into a full keyboard in docking station, then the devices respond by change in the way the information is displayed on the screen. Now this is important because this gives users the best experience possible. So that you're not trying to view little itsy-bitsy text when you're on a 7-inch tablet, instead things are rearranged in such a way that it's ideally suited for that type of device compared to a big screen like this. I mean there is a different way in which we interact, when we're talking about a phone and we're talking about a big screen. And so Continuum is an intelligence, let's put it that way, built into Windows 10 that kind of modify its presentation. Now there is a couple of ways in which I can demonstrate this to you. For one, we've got this device here, and this device is a Yoga – and it's a two-in-one. So what this allows me to do is to fold this in half. And when I do that this can immediately change its behavior, and it says to me, "Do you want to switch to tablet mode?" Now I'll show you what that looks like on the screen here in just a moment. But I'm going to say yes to that. And, as soon as I do, now I have got full screen start on this thing. And the reason I have full screen start is because it's assuming now that I'm not really using the keyboard, instead it's a tablet. And so it's giving me all these big live tiles and asking me and helping me interact with it using my phones.

Now you can manually force a device to actually go into tablet mode. And so let me show you, what that looks like on my screen. I'm going to go here and I'm on a surface tablet. Now it's got a few chords plugged into it. So, with a Surface Pro, you can actually detach it from the keyboard completely and it goes into tablet mode. But I'm not going to do that here because I have got some chords plugged into it and I'm recording the screen and audio and all that. So what I'm going to do, instead, is I'm going force it into tablet mode. And so you'll get kind of an idea, what Continuum looks like from my screen capture. I'm going to go into my Action Center – so Windows+A. And I'm going to hit Tablet mode, like so, and there we are. Now I'm in full screen tablet mode. Now, as I was talking about earlier, if you have a device that can be converted, what they call a two-in-one...like a Surface Pro – where you can detach the keyboard or like the Yoga – where you can spin it around. Now there are a lot of other devices out there made by other manufactures to do very similar types of kind of conversions. When you have devices like that, you'll get a prompt that says, "Do you want to move this device into tablet mode, yes or no?" And so it can detect. That's a whole point of Continuum – it automatically can detect the best kind of presentation for this.

[The Windows 10 desktop is shown. The presenter presses the Windows + A key to open the ACTION CENTER pop-up box.]

And the smaller the screen, the more it adjust that kind of environment. So that you see something like this, where you have mostly tiles where they can all be arranged vertically instead of horizontally like this, say on a phone. Or if you take your phone, and it has the hardware capable of Continuum, and you plug it into a docking station, then your Windows phone will actually look like a regular desktop because it is Windows 10. It's Windows 10. The Windows 10 mobile is Windows 10. So of course, it's going to give you your same kind of File Explorer that kind of experience. So that's Continuum and that's really cool. So now what I want to do is I want to go ahead and take us out of Tablet mode, I should say, and hit tablet mode like that. And I also want to point out that you can change that default behavior. So, if I go in, and I do a Windows+I there. There is the ability to bring up and control the automatic prompting for tablet mode and I don't remember what category it's in, so I'm just going to use as a lovely search feature, there it is, click on that. And it tells me it's in SYSTEM, and so there is Tablet mode. And I can make Windows more touch friendly, when I use the device by turning that On or Off, like so. And then I can also give it some other customizations like when this device automatically switches tablet mode on or off, Always ask or Don't ask. Okay, and Don't ask me and don't switch, all right. Just like it always in one particular mode, one way or the other. Okay, and then the ability to hide icons on the taskbar in Tablet mode, so it suppresses the taskbar. And I can turn that On or Off if I want to. So there are some specific settings related to tablet mode and how your system behaves to that.

[The presenter opens the Settings window. In the "Find a setting" search box, the presenter types tablet, and the SEARCH RESULTS page appears that contains different search results such as Tablet mode settings. He clicks the Tablet mode settings search result, and the SYSTEM page appears in the Settings window. By default, the Tablet mode option is selected in the left section and the Tablet mode page is open in the right section.]

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Exercise: Start Sync Settings

Learning Objective

After completing this topic, you should be able to

1.

Say you want to personalize Windows 10, let's say you want to change the transparency of the Start menu and you want to disable setting synchronization. Where do you go? How do you do that? I'll give you a moment to think about it. Feel free to pause the recording and resume it when you're ready.

[Exercise: Start Sync Settings.]

All right, there's obviously a couple of different ways you can do this. The easiest way I found is just to right-click and choose Personalize, and this takes me right into the PERSONALIZATION category of Settings. Then I'm going to select Start here and this is where I can actually control a lot of settings related to Start. Now what is interesting is transparency is not listed. Do you remember where transparency is actually listed? That's right. It's actually up here under Colors. This is where you can turn On or Off Start, taskbar, and action center transparency. Next thing I want to show you is where to actually go to turn off your synchronization settings. So that's done in the settings. I want to back up to the main page, but we're going to go to Accounts and you can see in the subheading, it even tells me this is where the sync settings are located. Under Accounts - Sync your settings and then here I can actually turn Off sync settings or I can configure individual sync settings. That's how you do it.

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