When Windows updated my computer to Windows 11, I just let it work. When I came back, I needed to work, so I blindly charged ahead, finding Explorer and the Start menu, and kind of ignored everything else.
Turns out my icons are there on the bottom and I can do the old Pin to Taskbar, and I was off. No harm, no foul.
But, today, I’m supposed to be working. My freelance writing clients need invoices because it’s the end of the month. So naturally, instead of that, my ADHD noticed there were two icons at the bottom that are new with Windows 11, and I don’t know what those new taskbar icons do.
Did I make a mental note of them and go on to get my work done? Or, totally not that?
New Windows 11 Taskbar Icons
All right, we are talking about these icons. I mean, I’m not dumb. I know the magnifying glass is search, the Windows symbol is the start menu, and the camera thing is video (I don’t have a camera attached to my desktop PC). It turns out the camera is actually Chat. I don’t have that set up, so we’ll worry about that later.
These are the two that are distracting me from doing my work.
So, it turns out the one on the left lets you have multiple desktops. Cool.
When you make a new desktop, all your open tabs, and email and all of that are put back to the starting state, so you have a clean desktop. Here is the best part. You can easily go back to your old desktop. So, if you’re like me and you end up with a browser window full of tabs with work stuff, and a browser window full of tabs with fun stuff, and eventually multiple browser windows mixed with work and fun tabs, plus whatever your kid opened while researching penguins, you can open a new desktop and start over. Ideally, you would close that other desktop when you are done, so you don’t also end up with multiple, mixed desktops.
The button next to it is the widgets button.
There were widgets on the old start menu of Windows 10. I never really liked it. When I click Start I have somewhere to be, metaphorically speaking. I don’t want to stop and look at the weather, or whatever Spotify put instead of its icon. That was the other problem. If you were looking for that green circle thing from Spotify, it was never there. Instead, there was some album cover that you’d never seen before, so you’d spend a few seconds figuring out what was going on instead of just clicking and going.
Now, I can have a big ‘ol widget window and click it when I’m bored, or have a few minutes to kill, or whatever. I think I might actually use the widgets on Windows 11 now. I never used them before.
OK, I really do have to go work, but when I’m done, I’m going to research the separate desktop thing. I wonder just how separate they are.
Have a good Friday.