Windows 10 Settings

First are some system settings. This section refers to a Bilibili video¹.

1. Change the computer name

Press Win + I to open Settings, click the first item, System, then scroll to the bottom of the left sidebar and open About. There you can see the option to rename this PC.

Restart the computer after renaming it.

2. Rename the user account

Refer to this article: windows - Change the user account name (Windows 10)_Change Windows username_CSDN Blog

Taskbar Settings

Find the taskbar at the bottom of Windows and right-click it. Disable anything you do not want to display. I usually keep it like this.

Click Search (H), and I choose to hide the search icon because it is not very useful. I often use Win + Space for search instead. Click News and interests (N), and I choose to turn it off. Then click Taskbar settings (T) at the bottom.

Under Notification area --> Turn system icons on or off, keep only the icons you want.

Turn off the News and interests and People section.

As for the apps in the lower-left corner, set them however you like.

System Settings

Open Settings (Win + I).

1. Remove apps

Find Apps and uninstall anything you do not want or do not like. Generally, if you used the official Microsoft installation image, there will not be that many extra apps.

2. Privacy settings

Go to Privacy settings --> General and turn off all tracking options.

Turn off Contacts and Phone calls.

Under Background apps, turn off software you do not use often.

3. Start menu settings

Press the Win key to open the Start menu, select the Settings icon, right-click it, and choose Personalize. You can choose which icons appear on the Start menu.

Personally, I only keep the Settings option.

File Explorer Settings

View --> Options --> Open File Explorer to: This PC

At the same time, I disable Show frequently used folders and Show recently used files in Quick Access, and I also remove the four pinned items in Quick Access.

For the five system folders on the left side, Videos, Documents, Downloads, Music, and Pictures, change their paths to drive E:.

Create five folders with the same names on drive E:, then select Videos on the left, right-click it, choose Properties --> Location --> Move, and select the newly created folder with the same name.

1. About Quick Access

I usually use it like this: in the Data drive, create one frequently used folder, such as English Vocabulary Notes, pin it to Quick Access, and then hide it in the Data drive. This keeps things clean.

As mentioned above, I hide the Downloads, Videos, Pictures, and Music folders after moving them to the Data drive. This way, I can access them directly through This PC in the sidebar without opening the Data drive.

Default Applications

Change the default app for opening PDF files to Edge: How to change the default PDF opener to Edge_win10 PDF always opens with Edge-CSDN Blog

Activate Windows

[WeiLingWei]-Windows/Office Full Activation Guide-KMS Online Activation-KMS Activation Server-Windows 11 Permanent Activation with One Command-Windows 10 Permanent Activation with One Command (jihuowin.com)

Refer to this link.

Startup Programs

In this path:

1

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

You can place startup programs for Windows 10. You can also write your own programs and put shortcuts to them here.

Reference