Desktop (24H2) (Archived)

The Windows 11 Desktop works much as it did in Windows 10, but it has been updated with new iconography–as with the Recycle Bin you can see below–and a new Themes feature that lets you combine your favorite desktop backgrounds, colors, sounds, and mouse cursors to provide a more personalized experience.

We look at the basics of the Windows 11 Desktop and its new visual design in What’s New and Familiar in Windows 11. Here, we explore its new features and how you can work around some of its new limitations.

What’s changed with the Desktop context menus?

When you right-click the Desktop or any of the icons on the Desktop, Windows 11 displays a context menu that provides options related to that specific object. For example, when you right-click the Recycle Bin, you see one menu item, “Empty the Recycle Bin” that only applies to that item, plus others that are common to various user interface elements.

When you right-click an icon for a folder, shortcut, app, or another file, you similarly see several items that apply to those objects.

This behavior should be familiar to most Windows 10 users. But aside from the obvious new visual style, there are other changes to these context menus in Windows 11 related to Microsoft’s simplification efforts in this release: These menus tend to be much shorter than the similar context menus you saw in Windows 10 because there are now fewer options than before.

Let’s take a closer look.

Make sense of the icons in the new context menus

In Windows 10, the Desktop context menus displayed standard menu items for commands like Cut, Copy, Paste, Rename, Share, and Delete appear alongside the other menu items. But in Windows 11, these commands have been changed to icons that all appear in a single row at the top (or bottom) of the context menu.

In previous Windows 11 versions, these icons lacked labels, making them indecipherable to many. But Microsoft rectified this mistake in Windows 11 version 24H2 by adding labels to the icon-based menu items. As before, you can hover the mouse cursor over each of these items to display a tooltip that provides its keyboard shortcut.

Confusingly, this row of icons can appear at the bottom of the context menu instead of the top. As it turns out, this purposeful: Windows 11 will always display these icons as close as possible to the mouse cursor, and if the item you’re right-clicking is close to the bottom of the Desktop, the context menu that appears may have to display above the mouse cursor. And so the icons will be on the bottom.

Display the classic, Windows 10-style context menus

To further simplify the presentation of this context menu, Microsoft also removed some options that were available in the similar Windows 10 context menus. That can be problematic if you are used to using any of those options.

You can’t easily configure Windows 11 to display the old Windows 10-style context menus by default. But you can at least access them on the fly.

To do so, right-click the Desktop or an item on the Desktop and choose “Show more options.” The old context menu, with its text-based commands and missing commands, appears using the old Windows 10 visual style.

Alternatively, you can open this older context menu style directly by holding down the SHIFT key while you right-click.

Power user tip: Restore the Windows 10 context menus

We don’t recommend this for most readers, but if you need the old Windows 10-style context menus, you can bring them back permanently, disabling the new Windows 11 context menus. To do so, open the Terminal app–you can find it with search in Start–and type the following command (followed by tapping Enter):

reg.exe add “HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}\InprocServer32” /f /ve

Then, restart your PC (or restart Windows Explorer, if you’re comfortable doing that). The Windows 10 context menus are back!

To reverse this change, open Terminal and type the following command:

reg.exe delete “HKCU\Software\Classes\CLSID\{86ca1aa0-34aa-4e8b-a509-50c905bae2a2}” /f

As before, you will need to reboot the PC or restart Windows Explorer to see the change to take effect.

Display the Desktop when it’s covered with windows

Many people use the Desktop to store files and folders temporarily while they’re working on various projects. (And sometimes permanently, which we don’t recommend.) There’s nothing wrong with that, but as you use your PC throughout the day, the Desktop gets covered up with apps and other windows, hiding its contents. Fortunately, you can use a feature called Show desktop to minimize all open windows so you can see the Desktop and access any files there.

To do so, mouse into the lower-right corner of the display. As you can see, there is a small and hidden area to the right of the notification icon (which resembles a bell) in the Taskbar called Show desktop.

To hide all the open windows, click Show desktop. When you’re done working with the Desktop, mouse back over to Show desktop and click it again to restore all the previously open windows.

You can also toggle Show desktop by typing WINKEY + D.

If you don’t see Show desktop at the far right of the Taskbar, you can enable it using the Settings app (WINKEY + I). Navigate to Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors and set the setting “Select the far corner of the taskbar to show the desktop” to “On.”

Hide all windows except for the one you’re using

Windows 11 has a fun, optional feature called Shake that lets you grab any window’s title bar with the mouse our touchpad and then shake it in any direction to minimize all other open windows. Well, don’t do it yet: This feature is disabled by default, so you need to enable it first.

To do so, open the Settings app (WINKEY + I) and navigate to System > Multitasking. Then, find the setting titled “Title bar window shake” and set it to “On.”

Customize the Desktop

Like its predecessors, Windows 11 provides various ways to customize the Desktop with backgrounds, colors, and–new to Windows 11–Themes.

Here, we’ll focus on what’s new and non-obvious.

Get a beautiful new photo background every day

Windows 11 lets you set the Desktop background–what many think of as wallpaper–to a solid color, a picture, or a slideshow. But you can also use the Windows spotlight feature that was previously available only on the Lock screen to get a new, high-quality photo from Bing every day as your background.

If you just acquired Windows 11 with a new PC, you will have noticed that this Desktop background is enabled by default.

To get started with Windows spotlight, open the Settings app (WINKEY + I) and navigate to Personalization > Background.

If the drop-down next to “Personalize your background” isn’t already set to “Windows spotlight,” change it to that option now. When you do, the background is replaced with a photo from Bing, and you will see a new “Learn about this picture” icon appear in the lower-right corner of the Desktop.

This icon cannot be removed. But you can move it anywhere on the Desktop using drag-and-drop, double-click it to learn more about the image on Bing.com, or right-click it to access a flyout pane with various options that somewhat mirror what you can do with Windows spotlight on the Lock screen.

The good news? There are no ads or suggestions, as is the case with the Lock screen.

Use Themes to customize how Windows 11 looks

Windows 11 ships with several themes–Windows (dark), Windows (light), Windows spotlight, and others–some of which feature four backgrounds that appear, in turn, on a schedule. Windows (light) is the default, and it has just one background, but PC makers can replace this choice with a theme of their choosing.

When you open the Settings app (WINKEY + I) and navigate to Personalization, you will see the current theme displayed with five other theme choices at the top of the page. This makes it easy to switch between the most recently used themes.

For a much wider range of options, select the “Themes” option on this page (below “Colors”).

Here, you can perform the following actions.

Customize a theme

Each theme provides a background (which can be one or multiple images), an accent color, a sound scheme, and a mouse cursor scheme. But you don’t have to accept a theme’s defaults: You can customize any of these items and, if desired, save the result as a new custom theme.

To do so, select the theme you wish to customize so that it appears at the top of Themes settings. Then, select Background, Color, Sounds, or Mouse cursor to customize that item: Background and Color are both configured within the Settings app while Sounds and Mouse cursor both launch old-school control panels. When you’re done and return to Themes settings, the “Customize” button has changed to “Save.” Click that button to save the theme as a new theme.

Find new Themes

Microsoft makes many more additional themes available in the Microsoft Store app. To find them, navigate to Themes settings in the Settings app and click the “Browse themes” button next to “Get more themes from the Microsoft Store.” The Microsoft Store app will appear and navigate to a page full of themes so you can see what’s available.

You don’t have to browse mindlessly through the huge collection of themes in this list: Use the “Filters” button to find exactly what you’re looking for.

If you find a theme you like, select it to display its details page. Then, select the “Get” or “Install” button to download and install it on your PC.

The “Get” button appears when you’ve never downloaded this particular theme before. You’ll see “Install” for themes you downloaded previously. (There are also paid themes, believe it or not.)

When the download is complete, a banner notification appears to announce that success, but Windows 11 won’t automatically apply the theme. Instead, you can return to Themes settings (in the Settings app), where you will find the new theme added to the grid of available themes. To apply the theme, just click it.

The new theme will also appear at the top of Personalization settings because it is now one of your six most recently accessed themes.

Delete a theme

To delete a theme, open Themes settings, right-click the theme you wish to remove, and then select “Delete” from the context menu that appears.

You can also delete recent themes from the top view in Personalization settings.

You cannot delete any of the themes that come in-box with Windows 11.

Determine which icons appear on the Desktop

Decades ago, Windows displayed various system icons right on the Desktop. But these days, the Recycle Bin is the only system icon you’ll find by default. If you’re feeling nostalgic or simply prefer to access file system locations like Computer, Network, your home folder, or the legacy Control panel in this fashion, you can still display them on your Desktop.

To do so, open the Settings app (WINKEY + I) and navigate to Personalize > Themes. Then, select the “Desktop icon settings” item to display the Desktop Icon Settings control panel.

Select the Desktop icons you wish to use and then select OK or Apply to see them on the Desktop and party like it’s 1999!