Setting up a new Windows 11 PC — or resetting a gently used Windows 11 PC, so it’s as good as new — is pretty easy. Deceptively easy, in fact. After you click through the dialog boxes and adjust the few available settings as part of the out-of-the-box experience, you end up at the Windows 11 desktop.
But your work is not complete. Microsoft’s default settings aren’t necessarily tuned for you, and a default setup comes with a handful of annoyances that you can quickly fix.
Also: Windows 11 FAQ: ZDNET’s upgrade guide and everything else you need to know
When you get to the Windows desktop, I recommend taking a few minutes to do these six things before you go any further.
On a system you own and manage personally, you have two choices for setting up your primary user account: a Microsoft account, or a local account.
If your PC is in a managed corporate environment, you’ll have either a domain account or you’ll sign in with Entra ID, formerly known as Azure Active Directory. Either way, your administrator is the boss, not you.
Old-timers will probably prefer a local account because it’s what they’ve used for decades. But it’s the wrong choice these days, at least if you care about security.
Also: How to upgrade your ‘incompatible’ Windows 10 PC to Windows 11 in 2025
Using a Microsoft account gives you three advantages you can’t get with a plain-vanilla local account:
- You can turn on two-factor authentication and Windows Hello, which allows you to sign in using fingerprint or face-recognition hardware.
- You can protect the contents of your system drive with strong encryption, even if you’re using Windows 11 Home edition (to make sure encryption is turned on, go to Settings > Privacy & security > Device encryption).
- You can use Microsoft’s account recovery tools to access your encrypted data if you forget your password.
And, of course, if you have a Microsoft 365 Family or Personal subscription that uses your Microsoft account, you get access to Office apps and a terabyte of cloud storage.
You’re not required to use the Microsoft-supplied email address for anything but this single purpose. And if you create a new Microsoft account as part of the Windows 11 setup, it’s not linked to any existing phone number or email address, which means the address can’t be used to track your online activity.
You can create a new Microsoft account during Windows 11 setup.
Screenshot by Ed Bott/ZDNET
For more details on the differences between each account type, see For Windows 11 setup, which user account type should you choose? How to decide? For step-by-step instructions on securing your Microsoft account, see How to lock down your Microsoft account and keep it safe from outside attackers.
Oh, and one more thing to look out for if you sign in with a Microsoft account. You may discover that your personal folders — Desktop, Documents, and Pictures — have been moved into the cloud as part of the OneDrive Backup feature. That might be a good thing, or it might be an annoyance that you need to turn off. For details on exactly what’s happening and how to change things back, see “Is OneDrive moving all your files? How to take back control of your Windows storage.”
Microsoft makes money thanks to shortcuts sprinkled across the Start menu on every new install. Some of those shortcuts represent third-party apps and games, which are presumably placed on this high-value real estate in exchange 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 social media (TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook).
Also: Can you still get a Windows 10 upgrade for free in 2025? Short answer: Maybe
In early versions of Windows 11, these shortcuts were mixed in with Microsoft’s own apps in the Pinned section. In current versions, these shortcuts are under the Recommended heading. The good news is that these shortcuts are not installed by default. They take up minuscule amounts of disk space, and each one can be removed quickly.
It takes two clicks to uninstall an unwanted app directly from Start.
Screenshot by Ed Bott/ZDNET
For apps that are in the Recommended section, right-click the shortcut and then click “Remove from list.” For apps in the Pinned section, right click on the unwanted icon, click Uninstall, confirm your choice in a dialog box, and repeat as needed. (And yes, I realize that it’s very weird to offer the Uninstall option for an app that is not actually installed, and does not appear in the Installed Apps list in Settings, but here we are.)
Also: 7 quick ways to make Windows 11 less annoying right now
In addition to those third-party app shortcuts, you’ll find an assortment of apps from Microsoft itself. Many, but not all, can be uninstalled in the same way. For more advice on what to do with these apps, see The 12 Windows apps I keep (and the 11 I dump) on every new install.
This is a killer feature if you have Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise, or Education. It allows you to instantly spin up a secure virtual machine (VM) without any complex setup. The VM is completely isolated from your main system, so you can visit a suspicious website or test an unknown app without risk. When you’re done, close the sandbox, and it vanishes completely, removing all traces of your experiment.
Also: How to upgrade from Windows 11 Home to Pro – without overpaying
Although it uses the same virtualization features as Hyper-V, you don’t need to turn on Hyper-V, and it uses only a tiny amount of system resources.
To get started, click Search and type Windows Features, then click the shortcut to open the “Turn Windows features on or off” dialog box. Scroll to the bottom of the list and click the box to the left of the Windows Sandbox feature. After you restart, you’ll find a Windows Sandbox shortcut on the Start menu.
The Windows Sandbox includes almost no apps, only the Edge web browser and File Explorer.
Screenshot by Ed Bott/ZDNET
Note that a Windows Sandbox session is totally stripped down. It includes no third-party apps and almost no Microsoft apps, except the Microsoft Edge browser and File Explorer. You can use the Windows Clipboard to paste a URL into Microsoft Edge or to copy a program file to the sandbox for further exploration.
Compared to its predecessors, the Windows 11 Start menu is severely simplified. It has a section for pinned icons at the top, and below that is a Recommended section, which shows shortcuts to apps and documents you’ve used recently. At the bottom of the menu are your profile picture and a power button — and that’s it.
To make the Start menu a bit more useful, go to Settings > Personalization > Start > and make a few customizations. Use the options at the top to change the allotment of space between the Pinned and Recommended sections. You can’t hide the Recommended section, but you can use the switches on that page to hide shortcuts that would otherwise appear.
At the bottom of the page, click Folders and you’ll find a menu that lets you add shortcuts to the bottom of the Start menu, in the space to the left of the Power button. This option gives you easy access to some common locations in the file system without the need to open File Explorer first. These locations are the equivalent of the shortcuts that sit in a column to the left of the Start menu in Windows 10.
Add any of these shortcuts to a row along the bottom of the Windows 11 Start menu.
Screenshot by Ed Bott/ZDNET
You’ll also notice I turned on dark mode for the system. It’s much easier on the eyes, especially if you’re working in a dark or dimly lit room. You’ll find that option in Settings > Personalization > Colors > Choose Your Mode.
Microsoft finds a fresh way to clutter up the taskbar with every new release. Fortunately, they also include the tools you need to declutter things. In Windows 11, the default taskbar setup includes these extraneous additions:
- A search button — You don’t need a search box. Just tap the Windows key and start typing to search.
- The Task View button — You don’t need this, either. Use Windows key + Tab to get to the same place.
- Widgets — Ugh.
- Copilot — This app connects you to Microsoft’s AI service, opening a window where you can chat with the AI by talking or typing.
Also: This hidden Windows 11 setting adds an ‘End task’ option to every task on your taskbar
If you want any of those items, then more power to you. But you can make any or all of those shortcuts disappear with a quick trip to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar. Slide all three of these switches to the left to streamline the taskbar, so you can concentrate on the program shortcuts instead. (To remove the Copilot icon, right-click its shortcut and choose “Unpin from taskbar.”)
Get rid of taskbar clutter by sliding those top three switches to the Off position.
Screenshot by Ed Bott/ZDNET
There’s some good stuff at the bottom of that Settings page, too. Expand the “Other system tray icons” section to control which icons appear on the right side of the taskbar by default. And if you have multiple displays, be sure to click “Taskbar behaviors” to go through the options for how the taskbar works on a second monitor.
If you signed in with a Microsoft account, then your system drive is encrypted by default. if you’re running Windows 11 Pro, Enterprise, or Education, you can encrypt any drive and you don’t need a Microsoft account. (But it’s still a good idea — see Item 1 in this list!)
That encryption is strong and, for all practical purposes, unbreakable. If something happens to your PC, you might find yourself unable to read those files without supplying a 48-digit recovery key.
The complete instructions are here: “How to find your BitLocker recovery key – and save a secure backup copy before it’s too late.”
If you signed in to Windows with a Microsoft account when you set up your PC, go to https://microsoft.com/recoverykey and sign in with the same account (personal or business). That opens a list showing the recovery keys for all devices where you’ve used that account.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
