Windows Fundamentals
How Windows is put together, and the everyday tools that give you control of it.
Most people use Windows for years without seeing how its parts fit together. This course explains the desktop, files, users and built-in tools, so everything else you learn about Windows has something to build on.
You use Windows every day, but how do its parts actually fit together? We start with what's on your screen and work our way down, through your files, your account, your settings and everything running quietly in the background.
In this course
- File Explorer and the Windows shell
You open File Explorer every day, so it's the right place to start. Get to know its window and shortcuts, find out why the Recycle Bin and your desktop aren't what they seem, and learn what to do when it freezes and takes your taskbar along.
- Getting more out of File Explorer
Make File Explorer work the way you do. Start with views, file name extensions and hidden files, then open Folder Options to choose where it starts, clear its history, and run folder windows in a separate process so one crash can't take everything down.
- Search and indexing
Windows can find a file in a fraction of a second, because it already looked. Except when it can't, and a file you know exists won't show up. Learn how to search properly, what the index is, and what to do when search lets you down.
- Settings, Control Panel and the Windows Tools
Windows has more than one place to change things, and you're not imagining it. Learn what Settings, Control Panel and the Windows Tools are each for, the fastest ways to open them, and how to tell which one you need.
- Your Windows version and system information
"Which Windows do you have?" sounds like an easy question, until someone wants the edition, the version and the build. Find all three in seconds, learn what those numbers mean and when your version runs out, and see where to look for the full details of your PC.
- User accounts and profiles
Your account decides what you can change, and your profile holds everything that makes the PC yours. Learn the account types, how to add and remove users, what those administrator prompts really mean, and what happens when Windows gives you a temporary profile.
- User folders: your profile, AppData and its Roaming, Local and LocalLow folders
Your profile folder holds far more than Documents and Pictures. Find your way around it, go into the hidden AppData folder every guide keeps sending you to, learn what Roaming, Local and LocalLow are for, and see what you shouldn't clean up.
- System folders: what Windows, Program Files and ProgramData are for
Open your C drive and you'll find folders you never made. Find out what Windows, Program Files, Program Files (x86) and ProgramData are for, why WinSxS looks so huge, which ones to leave alone, and how to free up space the right way.
- Files, folders and NTFS permissions
"Access denied" isn't Windows being difficult. Every file on an NTFS drive has a list saying who may do what. Learn to read that list, how permissions pass from folder to file, what happens when you copy or move, and how to fix access safely.
- Task Manager, processes and startup apps
When your PC feels slow or a program freezes, Task Manager is where to look. Learn to read what it shows, close what's stuck, tell apps from background processes, understand that little green leaf, and decide what gets to start along with Windows.
- Optional features, capabilities and languages
Not all of Windows is installed on your PC. Some of it waits until you ask. Find out where to add optional features, why there's an older dialog for much the same job, how to add a language or keyboard, and how to list it all from PowerShell.
- Services and Task Scheduler
A lot happens on your PC without any window. Services keep Windows running in the background, and Task Scheduler starts things at set times. Learn to find them, read their settings, and work out why something keeps starting by itself.
- Environment variables and system paths
What does %APPDATA% actually mean, and why does Windows claim a command "is not recognized" when you just installed it? Both come down to environment variables. Learn which ones you'll meet, how PATH works, and how to change it without wrecking it.