Windows 10: The Missing Manual

Chapter 1. Desktop & Start Menu

These days, the graphic user interface (the colorful world of icons, windows, and menus) is standard. Mac, Windows, Chrome OS, Linux—every operating system is fundamentally the same, which is to say a very long way from the lines of typed commands that defined the earliest computers.

Windows 10 restores the desktop to its traditional importance, following a weird three-year detour into “what the heck” land known as Windows 8. The desktop is once again your only home base, your single starting point. It’s the view that greets you when the computer turns on, and it offers all the tools you need to manage and organize your files.

Herewith: a grand tour of the state of the art in computer desktops—the one in Windows 10.

The Lock Screen

When you turn on a Windows 10 machine, you know right away that you’re not in Kansas anymore. The first thing you see is a colorful curtain that’s been drawn over the computer’s world. It’s the Lock screen (Figure 1-1).

The Lock screen serves the same purpose it does on a phone: It gives a quick glance at the time, the date, your WiFi signal strength, the weather, and (on laptops and tablets) your battery charge. As you download and install new apps, they can add informational tidbits to this Lock screen, too.

The point is that sometimes you don’t really need to wake the machine up. You just want to know what time it is.

The Lock screen can also give you instant access to your Camera and Skype apps (Camera and Skype). You might ...