windows 10 and windows 11 includes a settings app and although the settings app is not quite the same as the control panel you'll find a number of features that are in the control panel have now been integrated into the settings app the ui within the settings app is designed to make things easier to configure and easier to find inside of windows you can find the settings app in the windows menu either by searching for the settings app or finding it in a list of available applications when you start the settings app it'll be a view
that looks very different than the older control panel you can see that system devices phone network and internet and other options are all available in the lower half of the settings app the windows setting includes a number of different options for the time and the language being used inside of windows by default windows will try to set the time automatically either from time servers that are inside of your own network or some available on the internet this is especially important if you're working in an environment with a lot of different windows systems using active directory
your system needs to be synchronized with the same clock that's used for active directory and that synchronization needs to have a tolerance of at least five minutes this is also where you would tell windows where your time zone happens to be so that everything is synchronized and updated properly depending on where you happen to be in the world and if you are somewhere else in the world you may need to set language settings for windows and all of that is also available under the time and language setting option we often tell you how important it
is to make sure that your operating system stays up to date with the latest security patches and fortunately windows includes the ability to automatically provide these updates on your system through the update and security settings option under that option you'll find the windows update feature that tells you if you're up to date or not and it tells you if there's any updates that need to be added to your system you can also modify when these updates are applied you may not want windows to apply security patches in the middle of a workday instead you may
want to tell windows to wait after five or six o'clock to install any updates many corporate environments restrict the personalization options you might have available but if you're using windows at home you can make extensive changes to the user interface all of these can be changed under the windows setting under personalization this allows you to change colors the typefaces and other aspects of the user interface inside of windows for example you can change background settings colors the lock screen configuration overall themes for the operating system and much more in the control panel we have the
programs and features option that allows us to modify what applications might be installed inside of the settings app you can go to the apps option which gives a list of all the applications that are installed and allows you to uninstall or move where an application might be you can also modify windows features from this screen so if you'd like to add or remove particular features such as fonts services or other types of protocols that can be supported that can all be done from the apps option one of the challenges we have with any operating system
is making sure that our personal data remains safe in windows we can make those configuration changes within the settings app under the privacy option inside of those options you can enable or disable a particular advertising id so that it can provide more customized advertising you can change the language that shared with others so that you're able to see advertising in your native language you can change how windows tracks different apps that are launched and you can enable or disable how windows provides suggested content inside of the operating system you can also enable or disable the
speech recognition function this can be important for privacy because this audio is sometimes sent to a third party service to provide additional processing the system option allows you to modify a number of features within windows starting with the display option you can modify display options such as the resolution or scaling of your screen you can change the way audio is output or change whether you would like to mute or unmute the audio you can also change the way that windows notifies you of features you can enable or disable the notifications and then change whether those
notifications are seen on the lock screen the settings app also allows you to manage devices these are any types of devices that might be connected to your system this might be a mouse a keyboard a printer or any other type of hardware for example you might want to change some of the settings used by your mouse and which buttons or wheels might perform different functions within the operating system you can also change the way your keyboard is used in the operating system and if you use a stylus you can make configuration changes that make it
easier to write on the operating system itself most of us make extensive use of the network so under the settings you have the network and internet options where you can make changes to any of your network configurations this is one of the first places you'll go if you're concerned about connectivity because this will tell you whether you're able to connect to the internet or if you're having a problem and if you need to make changes to any of the i p address configuration settings they can all be found under the network and internet link windows
10 and windows 11 have extensive hooks into the xbox gaming ecosystem not only are there games available on an xbox console but you can often play pc games and connect to cloud-based xbox games through the xbox application in windows 10 and windows 11. under the settings app you can modify the gaming options to enable an xbox game bar that's available when you're playing a game on your system this allows you to capture video from your games and share information with all of the friends that you might have on your gaming network you can log into
windows using a microsoft account or using a local account on that system inside of the settings is an accounts option which allows you to manage and configure all of those settings this also allows you to configure an email application that your application will use if you ever click on a link that needs to send an email you can also tell windows how you would like to log into the system would you like to use a personal identification number would you like to use a traditional password or do you have a security key that you could
use along with this setting if you need to make this login process more secure you'll find all of those settings under the accounts option
