9 things I always do after setting up Windows 11 - and why you should too

On a strategy you ain and negociate personally, you person 2 choices for mounting up your superior idiosyncratic account: a Microsoft account, oregon a section account. (If your PC is successful a managed firm environment, you'll person either a domain relationship oregon you'll motion successful with Entra ID, formerly known arsenic Azure Active Directory. Either way, your head is the boss, not you, and this nonfiction doesn't use to you.)

Old-timers volition astir apt similar a section relationship due to the fact that it's what they've utilized for decades. But it's the incorrect prime these days, astatine slightest if you attraction astir security. 

Also: How to upgrade your 'incompatible' Windows 10 PC to Windows 11 successful 2025

Using a Microsoft relationship gives you 3 advantages you can't get with a plain-vanilla section account:

• You tin crook connected two-factor authentication and Windows Hello, which allows you to motion successful utilizing fingerprint oregon face-recognition hardware.
• You tin support the contents of your strategy thrust with beardown encryption, adjacent if you're utilizing Windows 11 Home variation (to marque definite encryption is turned on, spell to Settings > Privacy & information > Device encryption).
• You tin usage Microsoft's relationship betterment tools to retrieve your encrypted information if you hide your password.

And, of course, if you person a Microsoft 365 Family oregon Personal subscription that uses your Microsoft account, you get contiguous entree to Office apps and a terabyte of unreality storage.

You're not required to usage the Microsoft-supplied email code for thing but this azygous purpose. And if you make a caller Microsoft relationship arsenic portion of the Windows 11 setup, it's not linked to immoderate existing telephone fig oregon email address, which means the code can't beryllium utilized to way your online activity.

The past happening you privation to bash is marque a clump of customizations, lone to observe that thing went incorrect with the archetypal setup and you person to commencement over. So, earlier moving on, spell done this checklist:

• Check that the close Windows variation is installed and that it's decently activated. You'll find these details successful System > Activation.
• Right-click Start (or property Windows cardinal + X) and past click Device Manager connected the Quick Link menu. If you spot immoderate entries with a reddish X oregon a yellowish exclamation point, you request to find and instal the close driver.
• Open Settings > Windows Update and get the latest updates. You mightiness request to restart astatine slightest erstwhile to decorativeness installing each disposable updates.
• Check with the PC manufacturer's enactment tract for immoderate updated drivers that mightiness beryllium disposable for strategy components. Pay peculiar attraction to BIOS updates and chipset drivers.
  

Your Start paper is astir apt cluttered with shortcuts to apps you don't request and volition ne'er use. PC makers, for example, emotion to instal proceedings versions of antivirus programs, successful the hopes that you'll bargain a afloat subscription and they'll get a commission. 

In the Windows 10 era, Microsoft chopped deals with third-party app developers to sprinkle shortcuts crossed the Start menu on each caller install. Some of those shortcuts represented third-party apps and games, which were presumably placed connected this high-value existent property successful speech for bounties paid by the owners of those third-party apps and services. Typically, they included apps for streaming-media services (Spotify, Disney+, Prime Video) and societal media (TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook).

Also: The 11 Microsoft apps I ditch connected each caller Windows instal - and the 11 I keep

Microsoft appears to person ended those deals, based connected my caller acquisition installing Windows 11. But they could travel backmost anytime, and they mightiness inactive beryllium hanging astir connected PCs that are a fewer years old.

The bully quality is that these shortcuts are not installed by default. They instrumentality up minuscule amounts of disk space, and each 1 tin beryllium removed quickly.

Compared to its predecessors, the Windows 11 Start menu is severely simplified. It has a conception for pinned icons astatine the top, and beneath that is simply a Recommended section, which shows shortcuts to apps and documents you've utilized recently. At the bottommost of the paper are your illustration representation and a powerfulness fastener -- and that's it. A new Start menu is successful the works, but it's rolling retired very slowly.

To marque the Start paper a spot much useful, spell to Settings > Personalization > Start > and marque a fewer customizations. Use the options astatine the apical to alteration the allotment of abstraction betwixt the Pinned and Recommended sections. You can't fell the Recommended section, but you tin usage the switches connected that leafage to fell shortcuts that would different appear. 

When you determination to a caller PC, the astir achy portion of the process is reinstalling each of your apps and their settings. That utilized to impact a tedious process of searching for the installer files, downloading them from the developer's site, and hoping that you weren't tricked into installing a malware-laden fake app instead.

If you dread that prospect, I person bully news. Most of the apps you usage regularly are present disposable successful trusted repositories that are managed and vetted by Microsoft. Before you instal a caller app, cheque to spot whether it's successful the Microsoft Store, which present includes accepted Windows desktop apps. If it's not there, effort utilizing the Winget command-line tool. 

For those who cringe astatine the thought of utilizing a bid prompt, instal the UniGetUI tool, which wraps an easy-to-use ammunition astir the Winget repository.

On a caller instal of Windows 11, Microsoft assumes you privation to usage its Edge browser. Your different files are going to unfastened successful Microsoft apps arsenic well. PDF files volition unfastened successful Edge, audio and video files successful the Media Player app, and truthful on.

After you instal your preferred apps, marque definite they're acceptable arsenic the default. Go to Settings > Default Apps, click the paper listing for those third-party apps, and alteration immoderate needs to beryllium changed. 

One peculiarly pesky mounting is the mailto: association, which I've recovered ever wants to unfastened successful the Outlook (new) app alternatively of Outlook (classic). 

Sure, Windows is moving large close now. But you cognize the time volition travel erstwhile thing goes sideways and you request to marque a fewer tiny repairs.

When that time comes, you volition beryllium precise blessed that you had the foresight to make a bootable USB betterment drive. And if you adhd the Windows installation files to that drive, you tin easy reinstall Windows and get backmost to work.

I person afloat instructions here: How to make a Windows betterment thrust successful 4 casual steps - earlier it's excessively late.

If you signed successful with a Microsoft account, past your strategy thrust is encrypted by default.  if you're moving Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise, oregon Education, you tin encrypt immoderate thrust and you don't request a Microsoft account. (But it's inactive a bully thought -- spot Item 1 successful this list!)

That encryption is beardown and, for each applicable purposes, unbreakable. If thing happens to your PC, you mightiness find yourself incapable to work those files without supplying a 48-digit betterment key.

The implicit instructions are here: "How to find your BitLocker betterment cardinal - and prevention a unafraid backup transcript earlier it's excessively late."

If you signed successful to Windows with a Microsoft relationship erstwhile you acceptable up your PC, spell to https://microsoft.com/recoverykey and motion successful with the aforesaid relationship (personal oregon business). That opens a database showing the betterment keys for each devices wherever you've utilized that account. 

This is simply a slayer diagnostic if you person Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise, oregon Education. It allows you to instantly rotation up a secure virtual machine (VM) without immoderate analyzable setup. The VM is wholly isolated from your main system, truthful you tin sojourn a suspicious website oregon trial an chartless app without risk. When you're done, adjacent the sandbox, and it vanishes completely, removing each traces of your experiment.

Also: How to upgrade from Windows 11 Home to Pro - without overpaying

Although it uses the aforesaid virtualization features arsenic Hyper-V, you don't request to crook connected Hyper-V, and it uses lone a tiny magnitude of strategy resources.

To get started, click Search and benignant Windows Features, past click the shortcut to unfastened the "Turn Windows features connected oregon off" dialog box. Scroll to the bottommost of the database and click the container to the near of the Windows Sandbox feature. After you restart, you'll find a Windows Sandbox shortcut connected the Start menu.