I’ve spent most of my professional career chronicling the ups and downs of Microsoft Windows and, more importantly, helping human beings make sense of its fabulous features, weird idiosyncrasies, and occasional frustrations.
By my unofficial count, this is the sixteenth release in the Inside Out series since we kicked off the franchise in 2001 with a volume covering what was at the time the newest member of the Microsoft operating system family, Windows XP.
The world has gone through a few changes in the 20-plus years that have passed since the publication of Windows XP Inside Out. Back then, detailed technical information was hard to come by, Now, reliable information is a scarce commodity, especially when it comes to an ever-evolving product like Windows.
For those early Windows Inside Out editions, we had the reassurance of knowing that each new release from Microsoft would have a lifespan of at least three years. That’s no longer the case, with Windows 11 getting new feature updates yearly and Microsoft now reworking even core features as part of its monthly updates.
In combination, those two factors have dramatically influenced how this book is organized. Where we once might have devoted a page or more to a table listing command-line switches for an essential utility, for example, we now have the luxury of posting a link to the complete (and authoritative) online documentation. That frees us to spend more pages explaining how a feature works and how to integrate it into your personal workflow.
One bedrock fact we’ve discovered over the past two decades is that the core features of Windows change very slowly. The fundamentals of NTFS security and the registry, for example, have remained reassuringly consistent throughout many generations of Windows. But there’s also plenty that’s new in Windows 11, some of it obvious (the new Start menu), some familiar from Windows 10 features (Windows Hello), and some existing almost completely under the covers (hardware-based security).
Our team started this revision in 2021, shortly after Microsoft announced the first Insider Preview release of Windows 11. We consciously chose to keep working for more than a year as Microsoft prepared the first major update to Windows 11, version 22H2. Every page in this book has been tested and fact-checked using that release.
We know there will be further updates, but we’re confident that this book will be relevant for several years to come.
— Ed Bott, January 2023
This book offers a well-rounded look at the features most people use in Windows. It serves as an excellent starting point for anyone who wants a better understanding of how the central features in Windows 11 work. If you are a Windows expert-in-training, have a day job that involves IT responsibilities, or are the designated computer specialist managing computers and networks in a home or small business, you’ll discover many sections we wrote just for you. And if you consider yourself a Windows enthusiast—well, we hope you’ll find enough fun and interesting tidbits to hold your attention because, after all, we’re unabashed enthusiasts ourselves.
This book is not for beginners. It was written for people who have experience with Windows and are comfortable with and even curious about the technical details of what makes Windows work. It touches only briefly on some of the basic material that you’ll find covered in more detail elsewhere.
Whether you’ve been working with Windows for a few years or a quarter-century, we expect that you’re comfortable finding your way around the desktop, launching programs, using copy and paste operations, and finding information in a web browser. We don’t assume that you’re a hardware tinkerer, hacker, hardcore gamer, or developer.
Part 1, “Windows 11 essentials,” offers an overview of what’s new in this version, along with details on installing, configuring, and personalizing a PC running Windows 11. It also covers the Windows 11 app landscape, which has changed dramatically just in the past two years, with one full chapter devoted to the new default web browser, Microsoft Edge. Finally, we explain how to make best use of local and cloud-based storage, with a special emphasis on a core Windows 11 tool, File Explorer.
Part 2, “Managing Windows 11,” starts with a detailed guide to keeping your user accounts and devices secure. Additional chapters cover tools and techniques for measuring and improving your computer’s performance, keeping your network connections fast and secure, and configuring hardware. The section closes with advice on how to back up your important files, how to recover quickly from problems, and how to troubleshoot issues when they arise.
Part 3, “For IT professionals and Windows experts,” leads off with a chapter that introduces Windows Terminal and PowerShell, tools that take some effort to master but pay huge dividends for automating repetitive administrative tasks. An additional chapter covers Hyper-V, a powerful virtualization platform built into Windows 11 Pro and Enterprise editions. In the final chapters, we cover the unusual Windows subsystems for Linux and Android and offer pointers for administrators working in enterprise environments.
Finally, we provide three appendixes of reference information: a concise look at the differences between Windows 11 editions, a hands-on guide to the Windows Insider Program, and an overview of help and support resources.
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