For continuous top performance, be sure to set up automatic scheduling to let the tool check and tweak your system’s settings in real time. This is not only convenient but also ensures smooth performance so that you can enjoy a consistently flawless computer experience. Now that you have the basic knowledge of what to expect in the new Windows 11 OS, how do you keep your PC running optimally?

  • To rotate your display 90 degrees, 180 degrees, or 170 degrees, use the Ctrl and Alt keys together with any arrow keys.
  • My preference is keep an uncluttered desktop, and I set up all my PCs with what used to be called a Windows Classic style.
  • You can annotate your snips with different colored pens or a highlighter, save it as a picture or MHTML file, or email it to a friend.

Let’s look at all the features and how to use them in detail. If you don’t want to run the snipping tool then there is a shortcut to take a shot of active window in Windows 8. Windows 10 makes it easy to capture and save a picture of anything on your screen. Using keyboard shortcuts or the built-in Snipping Tool, you can quickly take a screenshot of your whole screen, a portion of your screen, or a specific window.

Open Files Straight from the Start Menu

If you hang back, there is also a chance Microsoft will lower the requirements for Windows 11. Either way, there is no reason you should feel there is an urgent need to upgrade. Ultimately, I think for testing the best practice is to disable VBS, but whether or not gamers and users in general should do this, is best for them to decide.

I personally know people who where eligible for windows 10, but stayed on windows, they never bothered to upgrade to windows 10, then roll back to windows 7. When M$ stopped offering windows 10 for free, when they tried to upgrade to windows 10, they where unable to because they missed the offer by a number of years. Microsoft started rolling out Windows 11 OS for all eligible systems on October 5, 2021. As of now, a good number of users have already updated their PCs to Windows 11, which will slowly replace Windows 10. But that doesn’t make Windows 10 obsolete, at least not as of yet. Although you will be able to use your PC during the installation time, it is recommended that you avoid using it and save all your work-related files.

Those icons on your Windows Taskbar next to Search are part of Search Highlights

This is really confusing at first, and is the one thing that I’ve really struggled to get used to. Instead of a bunch of convoluted buttons, the top of the UI now features clean and spaced-out selection of File Explorer’s most common tasks. This includes things like creating a new file or folder, as well as buttons for copying, pasting, renaming, sharing, and deleting files. That said, the ability to run Android apps does require a but of power under the hood. Not every PC will be able to run these apps, as the overhead required is significant. Microsoft recommends 8GB RAM at least, but says you’ll have a better experience with 16GB RAM, which I agree with.

Besides, you can create a bootable USB drive or CD/DVD for disaster recovery when the PC fails to load. A significant portion of those systems are running Windows XP and drivers download Windows 7 — software Microsoft stopped supporting back in 2014 and 2020, respectively. Unfortunately, you need some very specific hardware components for DirectStorage to work, but eventually, all computers will meet those requirements. Initially, only 1TB SSDs could use DirectStorage, but that requirement was later removed. At the time of writing, you need an SSD that uses the NVMe protocoland a DirectX 12 GPU with shader model 6.0 support.