Quick tip about local accounts: When you’re setting up Windows 11 on the first boot, it doesn’t give you a choice to sign in with a local account. You may think you have to use a Microsoft account, but it’s easy to bypass. Just type ‘a’ in both the username and password fields. It will say it failed to sign in and let you use a local account.

for the tip no. 3 do NOT just go and disable everything in the startup tab, especially if you don't know what you're doing. Some of the programs, especially on laptops are audio drivers, touchpad drivers and maybe other more important procesess. Turning them off may cause your system breaking and with that major confusion as to what is causing the issues. Read online what each individual procesess does and turn off accordingly.

I would always recommend keeping UAC turned on no matter how knowledgeable and experienced you might be. It isn't about checking what you are actively doing, it's about stopping things you don't know about happening in the background. It is extra security for one button press and could save a lot of heartache.

Thank you for highlighting my biggest pet peeve - hidden file extensions. You nailed it when you said it was also your biggest pet peeve. I really can't believe Microsoft still has this setting as a default as, like you said, could easily trick a user into clicking what they think is a document but is actually an executable program. I knew about LTT's hack, but I did not know the reason was because of hidden file extensions.

I long ago gave up trying to figure out the reasoning behind some of the MS Windows settings. They always seemed configured to make the life of the user or support person more difficult. I see some things never change.

For all the system admins out there, I recommend setting the option to show file extensions in Group Policy so that they are automatically set to show on all your client computers.

With the startup, I have noticed that Win10 (and Win 11) have a much shorter list, as if most of these are hidden. Win7 had a very substantial list where you could go and surgically adjust the whole process.

Great tips, even for computer experts. Its a good checklist to make sure you didn't forget something. Microsoft keeps moving the setting around so this helped me find settings that were not obvious. Why does Microsoft disable hibernation by default now? I set my laptop to hibernate when I close the lid. If I travel and don't open my laptop for a few days I don't want the battery to be completely dead when I try to use it because it drained in sleep mode instead of hibernating and turning off. So annoying. With SSDs, resuming from hibernate doesn't take long.

Back in DOS days you always saw file extensions, so I've always turned that on in Windows. Also, showing the full path in the title bar (now the tabs). This avoids having two windows open with apparently the same name but are actually in different locations.

I would add if a file is important BACK IT UP! Sooner or later something is going to go wrong.

I love how Microsoft seems to go out of their way to hide settings that used to be neatly organized into easy to find locations once upon a time. Thankfully, I seem to have performed all of these actions except for the local login. Fixed now.

thank you , you really help me with the setting . Great video !

I do most of these but it's nice to be reminded of some, like the file extensions one.

Consider me subscribed! You've just saved my skin here; I've been using Windows since the 1990's, and I noticed some things in the 2000's that were established standards like system restore quietly exited out. I had to throw out entire systems in the past 10+ years, since Windows 7, and looks like I won't have to trash anymore PC's in a while thanks to your channel; keep it up!!

Great information! I just bought a new HP desktop and used several of your recommendations.

Thanks for the ideas, used 3 of your tipps right away!

Wow, what a great video. I have just returned to the Windows ecosystem after years of being solely on MacOS. I feel so much better using windows now knowing that content like this is on YT to learn from and help make the experience a pleasant one. Thanks for your content.

Clear, concise, to the point. 👌🏼👍🏻

That was excellent, thanks for posting, really helped.

Thank you.The restore point was very helpful.

What is very important and what nobody talks about is that you should _NEVER_ store your data files on the same drive as Windows itself! If you've only one disk, the disk should be partitioned into two disk, i.e. C and D. If Windows is on disk C (most computers), data should be stored at disk D. If Windows has to be reinstalled from scratch, no data is lost even if disk C is reformatted. This should be the default option when Windows is installed on the computer!

Nice list! 👍 I would add #0: Change your account type to regular user. Create a separate local administrator account. Use its credentials only when you get a popup window for elevated rights request.

Scott, a wonderful video packed with truly important information to keep one safe and sound using their PC's!!!!!

Great tips, Scott. I especially appreciated the #1 Tip - Enable/Create Restore Point. Some of the other points I had covered, but it is good to do a thorough review. I've also switch to a local user account. Thanks again.

In addition to creating system restore points, periodically creating full system images with an appropriate 3rd party tool (I'll refrain from advertising any, but free ones can do the job just fine) can also be a good idea, in case of a hard drive / SSD failure. It's an advanced approach to backing your computer up, but also a great payoff if the main storage unit decides to kick the bucket. Make sure to store created images on an external drive. 🙂

Yeah. I am also baffled why System restore is disabled right out of the box. Sometimes it gets disabled in some point by itself automatically. I believe this has to do with Ms has a problem with Windows keeping settings and probably malware along inside the restore point, that they cannot remove those unless it is disabled. This was a point of attack since Windows 7 days.

Greatly appreciated!!!

Very useful info for most people. I think it would be useful to stress that you should not mess about with UAC at all! Although when set to default high priority, it causes you to have to jump through a lot of hoops to get things done, it is designed to protect you from hackers and it does a pretty good job of it. I am an experienced software engineer with many years of working on Windows and Linux, and I keep my UAC level just one below the top setting. But well done for this useful video.

For #4 O&O Shutup is a great way to get more granular + extra privacy controls on your device

Great video! Thankyou. the restore point was some great info!! thank you!

Just found your channel. Kudos...this video and the 2 rescue USB's video are invaluable. Thanx again!

Already use a local account - on a side note, using a Microsoft login was excellent when I was in college, heavily making use of the office suite, Microsoft logins were quite nice - they absolutely have a use. Already have windows set up to let me do the rebooting. Already have my webbrowser synced. Already have fast startup disabled. Don't turn off uac. If you don't know why you should never turn it off, then you definitely shouldn't turn it off. All of these privacy settings were available when setting up your profile on firstboot. My startup is pretty clean. I already have file extensions displayed. I also show hidden files and folders. Setting up system restore should be the first thing you do after configuring your computer, that way you have an ideal point to return to. Unless you like resetting your operating system and starting anew. That's what I do.

Note: I'd recommend users to check Startup Apps in Windows 10/11 because even if you disable it in the Task Manager Startup tab it can still show in Startup Apps.

Thanks for sharing these details. Greatly appreciated

Once again a great video. Big THANKS!

I always change the setting for file extensions, I never understood the reason Microsoft disabled file extensions, it made no sense to me and made it harder to do remote desktop support over the phone.

The local account, privacy settings, and system restore were all super helpful. Thank you.

Thanks. Not only did you explain the issue, and the rational, but you explained how to fix these issues. I use probably 4 of them. Much appreciated!

I'd already changed most of these settings, but I didn't know about System Restore getting disabled. So thanks for the heads up.

Cheers for the video, really useful. But one thing I do with all my machines goes one step further than the Windows restore point backup Take clone images of your system drive using ghosting software, so the entire process is outside of Windows running at all

As an old Windows 95/98/2000/xp/vista/7/8/10/11 tweaker these are good starting tips for anyone not in the know. A lot of my old tweak settings died long ago with the older Windows versions but these are solid for a beginner!

This has been very useful. Thanks

Recently had to clean boot my PC and this video helped me avoid some pitfalls. Thanks!

Nice video @2:50 I would suggest that a password manager to store all your bookmarks and passwords & will work regardless of the browser you want to use. @3:50 UAC is necessary if you want to use the Microsoft Store so do not disable it, just turn it to the lowest setting. and lastly make sure you do a *DISM /online /Cleanup-image /RestoreHealth* from a elevated command prompt so that your *sfc /scannow* command works properly

In Services, disable Telemetry and Link Distribution Tracking. All other thigs you mentioned are GREAT 👍

The last point about restore setup is the most important. Thank you.

Thanks for the tips. Much appreciated

This is a wonderful video and a downright must know for the PC community. Thank you!!!!

Lots of great info here, wow. Was surprised that 'System Restore' is actually useful now with Win10. In the past, it wasn't and never seemed to solve anything with computers I worked on for folks.

Thank you, great advice.

Thanks for this video it helped me a lot!

great list and I think there is one I would add and that is in the advanced setting for the system. Change the virtual memory from automatic to a specific setting using the recommended minimum as the minimum and then I usually double the memory for the maximum. This will keep your hard drive lasting much longer and from being slowed down by the system sitting at 100% on the HD slowing the system to a crawl.

Totally agree with all of these. I often use a restore point in case the 'forced' updates ruin the system and always log in with a local account..although Microsoft seem determined to prevent you doing this. And the unnecessary hidden files and extension setting..why do they do that?

Helpful ! Thank you.

Very helpful, thank you. 👍

Turning off UAC even for advanced users is terrible advice. With how easy it is to infect any computer today having at least a small item to help remind you is a good thing. I suppose you'd buy a high end sports car that is proven by race drivers that the onboard traction control gives them faster lap times than on their own, that you'd turn it off and keep it off. Not saying you're going to get infected of have issues but it's a very small item reminder, perhaps save you in those times you're up late nodding off and click something you didn't mean to.

Very useful! Thank you!

Excellent, well done !

Thank you so much for these great tips!

Thanks for help etc. I will be running through some of this again.

I've pretty much always done number 2. I Hate not being able to see what type of files I'm looking at,even if they do have icons for whatever program opens them.

What a great list of Windows tweaks! I like every one of them, and stumbled on most of them myself over the years. However, I just wiped my hard drive and reloaded Windows 10 last week because my computer was getting sluggish, and it was sure nice to have your list to draw upon. Would have taken me weeks to remember all of these on my own. I would have to say that my two favourites from your list are the reveal hidden files tweak and squelching as many startup programs as possible. Everyone wants their particular app to appear to load instantly--no matter how infrequently a user might call upon it. The result is that it takes forever for Windows to load on Startup. Thanks again.

Thanks for the tips! I already had several of them done in the past but you did show me a couple more I didn't know about. 😃

Thank you very much for your help and clear instructions.

Thanks to you my whole windows profile was reset while trying to convert it to a local account. Great stuff

I was gonna complain if "turn on file extensions" wasn't on the list! Well good job it was. It's crazy to me that such an unhelpful-and indeed dangerous-feature is enabled by default, and after all this time (think it's been like that since XP or something). That'd be #1 if I were making this list, but Windows Restore is great too. One the the few undeniably helpful things Windows can do for you (great failsafe when something goes wrong) and they turn that off?? Anyway, very good list of tips.

you covered everything I needed! Thanks !!

Was really helpful! Thanks 👍

I didn't follow that. Can you repeat it?

One a lot of people don't mention is to setup a true local Admin account and then setup your local account as a standard User account. That way your day to day usage is protected a little more but also it can pay off on occasion to have more then one account on a machine if the main account gets corrupted. You can at least get back on your machine one way or another and fix the busted account.

Very helpful video, glad this was on my recommended.

Tremendous! thanks - subscribed and telling everyone about this!!

why would you want to hide your file extension? this can help if anything has been hidden in your system, also it can help what files is the extension, like if it's a .exe, .mp4, file, this can help, hackers make a file extension like this (.txt.exe) people think it's a .txt file but it's a .exe if you hide it you want be able to see the full extension

To me a Microsoft account has brought many benefits over local accounts, and it has not "forced" anything on me that I couldn't easily get rid of. A local account is also super easy to crack in comparison to a MS account login (of Win 11 I'm not sure although I've been running the Insider builds since their early days just like I did with 10 but in everything before 11, it could be easily done in a couple of minutes with a boot disk). MS account also makes setting sync possible, which eliminates the need to set that file extension etc. settings again on every system. And for those who use MS services it can simplify logging in and I also appreciate the fact that Office business accounts also work as Windows logins (as someone who manages one small business). These also offer things like remote wiping and BitLocker key backups which can be very beneficial. MS account is also required for Windows Hello features like multiple login options including different hardware options (maybe these work without an account these days, I have not tested for a while, but they didn't in the past). Windows Hello can be used by other things too than just MS things. Like different password vaults, including multiple browsers. Microsoft Store also requires an account for some things. Window's parental control features are very good and offer very broad control over different accounts and even remote control over certain aspects of kids computers, and Xbox consoles, yet there are many users who are completely oblivious to these while they complain that their kids do this and that. Quite simple to setup and afterwards easy to manage via your MS account with each family member having their own accounts. But ok, let's just tell everyone that the account is wortless and then they complain when systems that require them don't work. Browser syncing is a fine feature although I prefer separate vaults for my ID's. Not for any security reason (although they can offer far more control over those aspects too) but also because of their flexibility (they are not tied to a single browser. Btw, for Edge sync, a MS account is required and setting one up with Windows automates the process. Not all but many of the privacy settings are set during the OOBE phase (when a new system is set up) but because people are in a constant hurry and often lack the capacity to stop and concentrate on pretty much anything these days, they don't bother to really read the information and just ram them next and skip buttons. Disabling UAC notifications at least used to be a problem and would prevent some features from working (Microsoft Store was one of them if I remeber correctly) although that might have changed also. I don't mind the default setting and clicking OK is not that difficult, even for soneone who installs and uninstalls stuff constantly. But obviously a benefit if it doesn't cause problems anymore. All in all, ok tips though some of them are very subjective and require more explanation as to why they should be done. Like MS accounts for example which can offer many benefits for many users, yet here it is basically said that they are useless.

AMAZING! Thanks!

Excellent content, thank you, subbed

I go one step further - on every PC I own, I format my hard drive, and install Ubuntu. Ditch the witch, and life will be wonderful.

Syncing across browsers is lowering your Security for the lazy that don't care to manage on their own.

this has been really helpful, thanks.

Thank you so very much for your help today.

Step #1: Download Linux Step #2: Create USB boot drive Step #2: Set your Windows machine to "OFF". Step #3: Restart into live Linux Desktop Step #4: Enjoy reliable computing.

Thanks very much for that, especially the enabling of the system restore feature. I had noticed on my computer when I tried to do a system restore recently and there was NO restore point on my windows 10! There is now. Thanks again

Very helpful. Thank you.

Great advice. Thanks for taking the time to make the video and share.

I can’t thank you enough for this video. Insightful and informative. Everyone should know and do these. Thank you, again!

Thank You that was super helpful

Great information! Thank you!

Thanks for your information and instructions.

Thank you for creating this vid! These settings are very simple to apply, but the course I'm studying didn't mention them. They seem very essential though!

I am definitley sending this video link to my mother! she is 81! And is continually telling me that she is slowly becoming more and more afraid to even use her PC!!! And yet that is the way she pays her bills, uses family tree, and does her taxes!

Very helpful, thank you.

Thank you @AskYourComputerGuy I was always logging into my Windows 10 desktop computer with my Microsoft account thinking that I would have additional features/ privilege's. Recently started following you and appreciate your videos/ work

Excellent advice! Thanks!

I appreciate your valuable assistance! 👍

Lots of stuff i didn't know. Thanks for the tips!

Great video, thanks for the tips. As someone else has already mentioned, it is worthwhile checking the Hibernate tab for added power saving.

Some of these were new to me. Big thanks!

Thanks for the advice. 👍

Thank you...very helpful.

Thank you Scott!