How to Customize the Taskbar, Notification Area, and Action Center in Windows 10
- Open the Start Menu and type “cmd”.
- When the command prompt is displayed, type “netstat -a” to view active network connections.
- To change the taskbar background color, type “netstat -b” and press Enter.
- To change the notification area color, type “netstat -c” and press Enter.
- To change the action center color, type “netstat -d” and press Enter.
Windows 10 Taskbar
Start Menu
Secondly, we have a new taskbar button that lets you quickly access the most recent apps, settings, and documents in the system. This is great for quick access when you need to get back to work or when you’re on a tight schedule.
The Start menu is a great way to organize your tasks and it’s a great way to get started on your day. It’s also a great way to find programs and files you need when you start up Windows. If you don’t like the Start menu, there are plenty of ways to customize it.
Cortana & Search
Cortana is a virtual assistant that Microsoft has added to the Windows 10 operating system. You can ask Cortana anything, and if she is enabled, she will respond with I’m Cortana. If you’re not using Cortana, you can still ask her questions by pressing the start button and typing “I’m Cortana.”
When you click on the Cortana button, you’ll be asked if you are interested in enabling Cortana or not. If you click on Not interested, Cortana will be disabled, but you can still search the computer and web.
Cortana is a voice assistant that you can use to control your computer. You have to enable it before you can use it, and there are some things that Microsoft sends to Cortana about your computer. Some people have complained that this information is being sent too much, and it might be true.
To use Cortana, you need to sign in with a Microsoft account. If you want to change Cortana settings, just click on the gear icon at the left and you can turn it off or on, enable or disable Bing search, etc.
If you don’t like how much space the Cortana search box is taking up on your taskbar, you can right-click on the taskbar and choose from Hidden or Show Cortana icon.
The first option will remove the entire search bar and the second option will use a search icon.
Task View
The Task View button is a new feature on Windows 10 that lets you see all the open apps on the current desktop and any other desktops.
In Windows 10, you can hide or show the Task View button by right-clicking on the taskbar and clicking on the Show Task View button option.
You can use the hotkey Windows Key + TAB to switch between programs and desktops in Windows 10. Overall, it’s an excellent feature and works well.
Taskbar Properties
If you right-click on the taskbar and choose Properties, you can customize a few more settings related to the taskbar.
This screen is similar to older versions of Windows, where you can lock the taskbar, set it to auto-hide and use small taskbar icons. You can also adjust the location of the taskbar to the left, right or top. Lastly, you can choose how you want to combine icons in the taskbar. By default, multiple windows from the same app will be combined.
The Show Desktop button is now hidden at the bottom of the taskbar. It used to be right next to the Show Desktop button on the desktop, but now it’s hidden behind a tiny slice of the taskbar.
Windows 10 Notification Area
The notification area in Windows 10 is similar to the notification area in Windows 7, but it also has the Action Center icon, which is the icon at the farthest right that looks like a piece of paper with text on it. ..
To configure the notification area, you can either right-click on the taskbar, choose Properties, and click on the Customize button next to Notification area or you can click on Start, go to Settings, click on System and then click on Notifications & actions.
The system tray is a small area at the bottom of your screen that contains icons for system tasks, such as launching applications or checking the time. You can customize the appearance and behavior of this area by adding your own icons and folders, or by using the default icons provided by Windows. To add your own icons to the system tray, open the Control Panel and click on System Tray. In the System Tray window, you will see a list of all currently running programs. If there are any programs that you would like to launch from this area, simply drag them onto the icon in the list and they will be launched automatically. If you want to add folders to this area, click on Add Folder and select a location on your hard drive where you want to store these files. After adding folders to the system tray, click on OK to close System Tray.
To add icons to the main area of the taskbar, click on Select which icons appear on the taskbar. This will open a window where you can choose all the different app icons you would like to have appear. ..
If you want to hide the icon from the main taskbar, you can set its value to Off. ..
You can move icons on your taskbar by just clicking and dragging them. That’s actually easier than going through the settings. ..
If you click on Turn system icons on or off, you can choose which system icons will appear in the taskbar. You can pick from Clock, Volume, Network, Power, Input Indicator, Location, and Action Center.
If you don’t want to see the Action Center, you can turn it off on the Notifications & actions page. This page controls which notifications you get, from which apps and where they appear.
If you disable the first two options, you won’t get any notifications from Windows other than system messages.
Some users might want to disable notifications on the lock screen for privacy reasons. Additionally, some users might want to hide notifications while presenting.
To turn off all notifications for an app, open the app and select the “Notifications” tab. In the “Notifications” tab, select the “None” option.
Windows 10 Action Center
The Action Center is a window that slides in from the right hand side of the screen. If you click on the Action Center icon, you’ll see a list of options. ..
The notifications screen in Android Oreo displays all notifications from the system and apps, with quick actions at the bottom. You can change which icons appear here by clicking on the icons at the top in Settings and picking a different icon. ..
On desktops, you can see all the possible actions listed, but on laptops, you may only see one row of four icons. Currently, you can pick from All Settings, Connect, Project, VPN, Note, Quiet hours, Location and Tablet mode. Some of these only really apply to laptops or tablets and won’t make much sense for a desktop.
Customizing the taskbar, notification area and action center in Windows 10 is a big improvement over Windows 8 and has enough new features to make the switch from Windows 7 seem sensible. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Enjoy!
