Windows 10 All-in-One For Dummies. Woody Leonhard

Let’s take a quick look at the other notable new Windows 10 apps: At the bottom of the screen, on the taskbar, click or tap the Edge icon (shown in the margin).The icon looks like a rolling wave. You’re transported into Microsoft Edge, the new Internet browser from the folks in Redmond. See Figure 1-9.Internet Explorer is still around if you really must use it: Just look in Start apps under Windows Accessories, not far from where you found Paint in Step 9. Microsoft has abandoned Internet Explorer. That’s good because Internet Explorer has turned into a bloated, buggy, sinking piece of scrap. (You knew that already if you read any of my previous Windows All-in-One For Dummies books.) With Microsoft Edge, there’s a chance that the ’Softies may actually stand a chance of one day competing against Google’s Chrome browser and Mozilla Firefox — both of which I still recommend.Play with Microsoft Edge for a bit — type something up in the address bar. Click or tap the + sign at the top, and add a new tab. Click some links. See how it works like a browser? Edge is actually a reasonably good browser, although it lacks some key features. See Book 5, Chapter 1 for much more info.FIGURE 1-9: Microsoft Edge takes you straight to adville; do not pass go.

      12 If you haven’t yet started with Cortana, give her a try. Click her icon near the Search box on the taskbar.Cortana goes through some setup steps, which I describe in Book 3, Chapter 5. If you already have a Microsoft account, it’s easy to get set up. (Note that you do need a Microsoft account to get personal information out of Cortana — that’s how she/he/it stores your data for later retrieval.) Cortana is now an independent app, but more than anything, Cortana is an extension of Bing, Microsoft’s search engine. Anything you type in Cortana search — any sweet nothing you whisper in her ear — is destined for Bing.

      13 Click inside the Ask Cortana search box, and type Tell me a joke. Or click the microphone icon (Speak to Cortana) and say “Tell me a joke.”I won’t attest to her sense of humor (see Figure 1-10), but Cortana has certainly been trained well. If you’d like more interesting things to ask Cortana, hop over to Google (sorry) and search for Cortana questions.That completes the canned tour of Windows 10 highlights. There’s much, much more to discover — I only scratched a thin layer of epidermis.Take a breather.

FIGURE 1-10: Hey, Cortana (pause, pause). Tell me a joke!

Keying Keyboard Shortcuts

      Windows 10 has about a hundred zillion — no, a googolplex — of keyboard shortcuts.

      I don’t use very many of them. They make my brain hurt.

      

Here are the keyboard shortcuts that everyone should know. They’ve been around for a long, long time:

       Ctrl+C copies whatever you’ve selected and puts it on the Clipboard. On a touchscreen, you can do the same thing in most applications by tapping and holding down, and then choosing Copy.

       Ctrl+X does the same thing but removes the selected items — a cut. Again, you can tap and hold down, and Cut should appear in the menu.

       Ctrl+V pastes whatever is in the Clipboard to the current cursor location. Tap and hold down usually works.

       Ctrl+A selects everything, although sometimes it’s hard to tell what “everything” means — different applications handle Ctrl+A differently. Tap and hold down usually works here, too.

       Ctrl+Z usually undoes whatever you just did. Few touch-enabled apps have a tap-and-hold-down alternative; you usually have to find Undo on a ribbon or menu.

       When you’re typing, Ctrl+B, Ctrl+I, and Ctrl+U usually flip your text over to Bold, Italic, or Underline, respectively. Hit the same key combination again, and you flip back to normal.

      

In addition to all the key combinations you may have encountered in Windows versions since the dawn of 19th-century dentistry, there’s a healthy crop of new combinations. These are the important ones:

       The Windows key brings up the Start menu.

       Alt+Tab cycles through all running Windows programs, one by one — and each running Legacy desktop app is treated as a running program. (Windows key+Tab treats the entire desktop as one app.) See Figure 1-11.FIGURE 1-11: Alt+Tab cycles through all running apps.

       Ctrl+Alt+Del — the old Vulcan three-finger salute — brings up a screen that lets you choose to lock your PC (flip to Book 2, Chapter 2), switch the user (see Book 2, Chapter 4), sign out, or run the new and much improved Task Manager (see Book 8, Chapter 4).

You can also right-click the Start icon or press Windows key+X to bring up the Power User menu shown in Figure 1-12.

      FIGURE 1-12: The Win-X, or Power User, menu can get you into the innards of Windows 10.

And finally, the trick I know you’ll use over and over. Starting with Windows 10 Fall Creators update, version 1709, there’s a new built-in emoji keyboard. Simply click wherever you want to type an emoji, hold down the Windows key, and press the period. See Figure 1-13.

Who says Windows 10 isn’t as cool as your smartphone? Only took Microsoft a decade or so.

      FIGURE 1-13: Emojis are — finally! — just a keyboard command away.

Chapter 2

      Changing the Lock and Login Screens

      IN THIS CHAPTER

      

Creating your own lock screen

      

Putting apps on the lock screen

      

Changing the way you log in

      

Setting a picture password or PIN

      

Avoiding logging in altogether

      Windows 10 presents three hurdles for you to clear before you can get down to work (or play, or whatever):

       You have to get past the lock screen. That’s