Whether or not you might be new to the PC business, upgrading from Home windows 10, buying a brand new Home windows 11 PC, or simply reinstalling Home windows 11 for some motive, there are lots of issues you are able to do after booting the system for the primary time to enhance your expertise and cut back frustrations.

On this article, I ready an inventory of 5 vital issues to do after upgrading to or putting in Home windows 11. Not like loads of different articles on the web, I’m not going to let you know the place you must preserve your Begin menu button, methods to change the desktop background, or do another preference-based stuff. As an alternative, I attempted to collect an inventory of really helpful and vital issues that have an effect on your consumer expertise.

Listed below are some fast hyperlinks:

1. Again up your BitLocker Key
2. Enhance the context menus
3. “Finish Job“
4. Take away advertisements
5. Flip off OneDrive annoyances

1. Discover your BitLocker Key

Not a single information I seemed up talked about this, however this one is definitely essential. The newest Home windows 11 model, 24H2, encrypts drives by default, no matter your version, with none notification or telling the consumer the place the hot button is. This conduct simply begs for hassle, and there are already stories about pissed off customers not realizing methods to decrypt their drives.

To keep away from this, ensure you have your BitLocker key backed up, not simply know the place it’s. Microsoft shops your BitLocker keys in your Microsoft Account by default, so for those who get locked out of it, you might be screwed. Here’s what to do:

1. Be sure you have signed in to your Microsoft Account in your pc.
2. Go to account.microsoft.com and sign up together with your Microsoft Account.
3. Go to the “Units” tab and choose your gadget.
4. Click on “Information and Help.“
5. Click on “Handle Restoration keys.”
6. Discover the “Key ID” and “Restoration Key” and write them someplace secure, say in your password supervisor.

Alternatively, you possibly can flip off BitLocker encryption throughout Home windows 11 set up.

2. Clear up the Context Menus

Home windows 11 context menus have redundant choices like “Open in Paint / Photographs / Clipchamp / Ask Copilot,” and many others. These choices litter the menus and gradual them down, additional ruining the already questionable consumer expertise. Additionally, for some motive, Home windows 11 nonetheless gives “Edit with Notepad” wherever I right-click an image or one other file that has nothing to do with textual content. Ugh…

The excellent news is that it’s fairly straightforward to do away with all these further entries. You may both delete these apps (assuming you don’t want them) or tweak the system registry to take away redundant choices from context menus.

To take action, launch Notepad or some other textual content editor and paste one of many following app-specific strains. Then, save the file, change its extension from .txt to .reg, and open it to use the modifications.

Take away “Edit with Clipchamp”:

Home windows Registry Editor Model 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionShell ExtensionsBlocked]
“{8AB635F8-9A67-4698-AB99-784AD929F3B4}”=””

Take away “Ask Copilot”:

Home windows Registry Editor Model 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionShell ExtensionsBlocked]
“{CB3B0003-8088-4EDE-8769-8B354AB2FF8C}”=””

Take away “Edit with Notepad”:

Home windows Registry Editor Model 5.00 [HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionShell ExtensionsBlocked]
“{CA6CC9F1-867A-481E-951E-A28C5E4F01EA}”=””

Take away “Edit with Photographs”:

Home windows Registry Editor Model 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionShell ExtensionsBlocked]
“{BFE0E2A4-C70C-4AD7-AC3D-10D1ECEBB5B4}”=””

3. Allow Finish Job

I like this small characteristic. It saves me various clicks when Microsoft Edge instantly decides it seems like hanging for some time, or one other app misbehaves and stops responding. As an alternative of opening Job Supervisor, which by itself likes to throw me a random “Not responding,” I simply right-click the app on the taskbar and choose Finish Job to kill its course of on the spot.

Word that that is totally different from “Shut Home windows.” “Finish Job” terminates the method, which makes it an environment friendly instrument for killing caught functions. Nevertheless, this feature is disabled by default; right here is methods to flip it on:

1. Open the Settings app and go to the “System” tab.
2. Click on “For builders.“
3. Discover and activate the “Finish Job” characteristic.

4. Cut back annoyances and advertisements

Home windows 11 might be fairly irritating with its pop-ups, advertisements, notifications, and different issues that solely distract and get in your means. Right here is methods to tame it just a little:

Disable notifications and prompts within the Begin menu: Go to Settings > Personalization > Begin and switch off “Present account-related notifications.”

Disable app advertisements and different suggestions within the Begin menu: Go to Settings > Personalization > Begin and switch off “Present suggestions for suggestions, shortcuts, new apps, and extra.”

Disable suggestions request notifications: Go to Settings > Privateness & Safety > Diagnostics & Suggestions and set “Suggestions frequency” to By no means.

Disable “urged content material” within the Settings app: Go to Settings > Privateness & Safety > Normal and toggle off “Present me urged content material within the Settings app.” Right here, you may as well flip off advert personalization throughout the working system and apps.

Disable “End establishing this gadget” display: This factor can take over your display after turning in your pc, prompting you to arrange extra options like OneDrive backups, Telephone Hyperlink, and extra, particularly for those who use an area account. To show it off, go to Settings > System > Notifications > Extra settings and untick all three choices.

Flip off widgets’ auto-open on hover: Press Win + W and click on the Settings icon. Then, flip off “Open Widgets board on hover.”

Flip off the information feed in Home windows Widgets: Open Widgets and click on the Settings icon. Then, choose “Present or cover feed” and switch off the feed.

5. Flip off OneDrive auto-backup

One other factor Home windows 11 does with out your permission is auto-enabling OneDrive backup. Every part on the Desktop and in sure consumer folders (Footage, Paperwork, Music, and Movies) is mechanically despatched to OneDrive. Because of this, objects on the desktop have a inexperienced checkmark, and you will get a whole lot of undesirable stuff if you have already got information in OneDrive.

Sadly, there isn’t any option to flip off OneDrive auto-backup in the course of the preliminary setup, so as soon as you might be on the desktop, do the next:

1. Click on the OneDrive icon within the tray space and choose Settings.
2. Go to the “Sync and backup” tab and click on “Handle backup.”

3. Flip every thing off.

Necessary: In case you have a bunch of information with inexperienced test marks (on the desktop or different folders), they’ll disappear after turning off computerized backup. Nevertheless, they haven’t been deleted; they’re simply in OneDrive. Go to File Explorer, open OneDrive, and test the Desktop / Paperwork / Music / Footage / Movies folder.

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It’s also possible to enhance your consumer expertise by changing a few of the inventory Home windows 11 apps with higher third-party choices. Additionally, there are some very helpful tweaking apps that provide deeper, user-friendly customization, so take a look at the next articles:

• High 10 Home windows 11 apps for each consumer in 2025

• High 10 apps to repair Home windows 11’s inconveniences

• High 11 apps each Home windows 11 consumer ought to have

If you recognize different helpful suggestions for Home windows 11 customers (apart from staying on Home windows 10), share them within the feedback.