Windows 11 Field Guide + Thurrott Premium

I’m happy to finally announce that I will be giving away the Windows 11 Field Guide to Thurrott Premium members. Better still, I’m going to make the book available on this site as individual articles, also for Premium members, giving you a new way to access this content.

I’ve wanted to do both for a long time, and you may recall that we did have a temporary Windows 10 Field Guide giveaway a few years back. But this change is permanent: if you are a Thurrott Premium member, you will get the Windows 11 Field Guide via Leanpub (in PDF, MOBI, and ePUB formats) for free forever. And we will be making the entire content of the book available on the Thurrott.com website so you, as a Premium user, can access any of it as needed at any time.

That latter bit is part of the reason that I reorganized the structure of the book: in addition to rewriting it entirely from scratch—almost none of the Windows 11 Field Guide is just updated versions of content from the previous book—I wanted to break down the book into more granular and easily-consumed parts. This is better for the book because it’s easier for me to update. But it also makes sense for the web, since most of those smaller parts—little chapters, I guess—work well as standalone web articles too.

Let me provide you with one example.

In the Windows 10 Field Guide, I didn’t handle multitasking in its own chapter, though that might have made some sense. Instead, I wrote about the multitasking features of Windows 10 in the “Get to Know Windows 10” chapter, which grew into a monster introduction to the OS.

In the Windows 11 Field Guide, there is a section called Multitasking that contains several chapters, most of which are quite short: Alt-Tab, Task View, Shake, Snap, Task Manager, Desktops, Focus, and Clipboard. Each of these will be its own article on the site, and each will be updated if/when needed in both places—the book and the site—as we move forward.

As with my previous self-published book, the Windows 11 Field Guide will be quite incomplete at first but will be updated regularly until it is a complete reference for the system (with version 22H2 as the baseline). I’m not entirely sure what the initial drop will include, but it should at least be the following, most of which is now complete:

Introduction

Get to Know Windows 11

• What’s New and Familiar in Windows 11
• What’s Missing in Windows 11

Install Windows 11

• Create Windows 11 Install Media
• Clean Install
• Step-By-Step: The Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE)
• Overcome Windows 11 Setup Annoyances

Upgrade to Windows 11

• Windows 11 Hardware Requirements and Recommendations
• Upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11
• Install Windows 11 on Unsupported Hardware

Personalize

• Windows 11 Personalization First Steps
• Customize Your Privacy Settings
• Customize the Display
• Customize the Lock and Sign-In Screens

Desktop

• Desktop
• Start
• Taskbar
• Widgets
• Search
• Quick Settings

Multitasking

• Alt-Tab
• Task View
• Shake
• Snap
• Task Manager
• Desktops
• Do Not Disturb and Focus Assist
• Clipboard

Because it is incomplete, the book will include a copy of the Windows 10 Field Guide as well. Over time, that will no longer be necessary, of course. But I wanted to start with the things that changed the most in Windows 11 upfront, as well as the basics.

Of course, what you’re really wondering is … when. I have a hard time handing this off, in part because it’s so incomplete, and I want to get it to a good place. But I know the delays aren’t helping matters, so I’ll try to get it online as soon as possible, the book itself first and then the web articles. And I will talk to Rafael this week about getting the necessary coupons available so that Thurrott Premium members can get the book for free as soon as it’s available.

Thanks, and sorry this is taking so long. But I think it will be worth the wait.