Ten Tips for Windows, Tablet and Laptop Owners

Ten or So Tips for Tablet and Laptop Owners

For the most part, everything in this tutorial applies to deskbound PCs, laptops, and tablets. Windows 11 offers some exclusive settings for the portable crowd, however, and I cover those items here.

Designed for travelers, it explains how to toggle Airplane mode in a hurry, connect to yet another Wi-Fi hotspot, and toggle an uncooperative tablet’s autorotate feature.

Since so many portable PCs include touchscreens, I explain the new touchscreen gestures offered by Windows 11, as well as how to tweak them to do your will.

In This Lesson

• Knowing the new gestures for touchscreens
• Turning on Airplane mode while flying
• Connecting to a new wireless network
• Toggling your tablet’s autorotate feature
• Choosing what happens when you close your laptop’s lid
• Adjusting to different locations
• Backing up your laptop or tablet before traveling
• Accessing the Mobility Center

Where's Tablet Mode?

Windows 8, 8.1 and 10 included something called Tablet mode, which made Windows switch to its finger-friendly mode. When in Tablet mode, the Windows Start menu would fill the entire screen, for example; the currently running app would fill the screen as well. Because tablets are often smaller than desktop monitors, seeing one program at a time made it easier to focus on essential information.

Tablet mode never really caught on, though, and it often confused desktop PC owners. So Windows 11 ditched Tablet mode completely. Instead, Windows 11 always adds extra space to menu items, making them easier to poke with a fingertip.

Plug in a keyboard, and Windows 11 knows to stop displaying its onscreen keyboard; that gives you back half of your onscreen real estate, letting you more easily see what you’re doing onscreen.

Using the New Touchscreen Gestures

Touchscreens, found on tablets and some laptops, let you substitute your fingertips for the traditional mouse and keyboard. Instead of clicking a button to push it, for example, you tap it.

Windows has supported touchscreens for years, but Windows 11 introduces some new ways to manipulate interacting with a touchscreen display. For example, Windows 11 displays a handy grid when you slide a window into a corner; the grid lets you see different ways to snap the rest of your open windows into place.

Windows 11 also supports haptic feedback with pens, a complicated way of saying you feel slight vibrations when writing, much like the feeling of a normal pen. That lets you feel what you’re doing, much like writing on textured paper. (Your tablet or laptop must support haptic feedback, however.)

Finally, Windows 11 introduces several new ways to drag your fingers across the screen to do certain tasks, each described in the following list:

• Slide a finger inward from the left edge to open the Widgets panel.
• Slide a finger inward from the right edge to see the current month’s calendar and the Notifications pane.
• Slide three fingers down the screen, and all your open apps minimize themselves to icons on the taskbar, leaving you with an empty desktop.
• Slide three fingers back up the screen to place your minimized windows back onto the desktop.
• Slide three fingers to the left or right to switch quickly between open apps.
• Slide four fingers to the left or right to switch between any open virtual desktops.

To adjust your trackpad’s settings, choose Settings from the Start menu, and choose Bluetooth and Devices from the left pane. Choose Touchpad from the right pane, and all the available options appear, ready to be toggled on or off, or subtly tweaked to your liking.

To adjust your touchscreen settings, choose Settings from the Start menu, and choose Bluetooth and Devices from the left pane. Choose Touchscreen from the right pane to see your options, including turning them on or off.

Switching to Airplane Mode

Most people enjoy working with their tablets or laptops during a long flight. Portable devices are great for watching movies and playing games while pretending to catch up on some work.

But most airlines make you turn off your wireless connection while the plane is in flight, referred to in airport lingo as Airplane mode.

To turn on Airplane mode on a tablet or laptop, follow these steps:

1. Click or tap the Wi-Fi icon near the clock in the screen’s lower-right corner. An icon-filled panel appears, including the Airplane Mode toggle icon.

2. Click or tap your Airplane Mode icon.

When the icon’s surrounding button is highlighted, Airplane mode is on, which turns off your tablet’s radios: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.

To turn off Airplane mode and reconnect to the internet, repeat these steps. This time, however, you toggle off Airplane mode, which reactivates your Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS.

If your laptop or tablet has a wireless cellular data plan, Airplane mode turns that off as well. It’s a handy way to shut off all your computer’s radio activity with one switch.

If you’re using Bluetooth earphones, though, feel free to turn on your laptop or tablet’s Bluetooth. (The Bluetooth icon lives right next to the Airplane mode icon.) Airlines don’t mind Bluetooth, just Wi-Fi.

Connecting to a New Wireless Internet Network

Every time you connect to a wireless network, Windows stashes its settings for connecting again the next time you visit. But when you’re visiting a wireless network for the first time, you need to tell your computer that it’s time to connect.

1. Turn on your laptop’s wireless adapter if necessary. Most adapters stay on continuously unless your computer is in Airplane mode. If so, turn off Airplane mode, as described in the preceding section.
2. When the panel appears, click the arrow to the right of the panel’s wireless network icon. Windows lists any wireless networks it finds within range.

3. Connect to a wireless network by clicking its name and clicking the Connect button.
4. Enter the wireless network’s name and security key/passphrase if asked.

When you click the Connect button, Windows announces its success. (You may also need to click through a disclaimer when connecting at some public places.) Be sure to select the adjacent checkbox labeled Connect Automatically. That tells your computer to remember the password and connect automatically the next time you come within range.

Toggling Your Tablet’s Screen Rotation

Most Windows tablets are meant to be held horizontally. But when you pick them up, they automatically rotate to keep your work right-side up. Turn your tablet vertically, for example, and your desktop becomes long and narrow.

Autorotation comes in handy when you’re reading a digital book, for example, because the longer, thinner pages more closely resemble a printed book. It’s also a convenient way to rotate photos on a tablet when showing them off to friends. But when the screen rotates unexpectedly, autorotate becomes a bother.

Most tablets come with a rotation lock button along one edge. (The rotation button is usually near the power button for some reason.) Pressing that toggle button either locks the screen in place or lets it rotate freely.

You can also toggle autorotation directly from Windows by following these steps:

1. Tap the Start button and then tap Settings. When the Settings window opens, tap the System setting from the left pane, and then tap the Display section from the right side.
2. Tap the toggle switch in the Rotation Lock setting.

When the button says On, Windows stops the screen from rotating automatically. Tap it, and the button says Off, forcing the tablet stay right-side up no matter how you move the tablet.

Adjusting to Different Locations

PCs don’t move from a desktop, making some things pretty easy to set up. You need to enter your location only once, for example, and Windows automatically sets up your time zone, currency symbols, and similar things that change over the globe.

But the joy of a tablet or laptop’s mobility is tempered with the annoyance of telling the thing exactly where it’s currently located. This section supplies the steps you need to change when traveling to a different area.

1. From the desktop, right-click the Date and Time area in the taskbar’s lower-right corner. A pop-up menu appears.
2. Click Adjust Date and Time. The Settings app appears, open to the Time and Language page.
3. Click the Time Zone option, and then select your current time zone from the drop-down list.
4. Change your date and time formats, as well as regional and language preferences to match your current country’s customs.
5. Close the Settings app. Your changes take place immediately.

Turning on the Traffic Widget

Windows 11 introduces a panel of Widgets — little information-filled boxes that can be called up with a quick click on a taskbar icon or, on a touchscreen, a finger swipe inward from the screen’s left edge.

A handy one to add when traveling is the Traffic Widget. It places a small, localized map in the Widget panel that constantly shows the state of your nearby traffic flow.

Click or tap the little map, and your browser fills the screen with a map of your immediate area and its current traffic situation. (While it’s there, you can also find directions to nearby locations.)

Backing Up Your Laptop Before Traveling

Please, please remember to back up your laptop before leaving your home or office. Thieves grab laptops and tablets much more often than desktop PCs. Your laptop and tablet can be replaced, but the data inside them can’t.

Keep the backed-up information at home or in the cloud — not in your laptop’s bag. Theft is why I don’t recommend storing any sort of backup memory card inside your tablet or in your tablet’s carrying case. When the thief takes your tablet, he takes your backup as well.

Microsoft’s OneDrive, built in to Windows 11, lets you store your information on the internet quite easily, providing an automatic backup.

Accessing the Mobility Center

Introduced in Windows 7, the Mobility Center lives on in Windows 11. It’s a collection of frequently accessed settings for portable devices.

To access the Mobility Center, right-click the Start button and choose Mobility Center from the pop-up menu. The Mobility Center appears.

Different manufacturers offer different settings, but most of them offer quick ways to toggle screen brightness, sound volume, rotation, battery plans, and ways to connect to monitors and projectors.

Turning Calculator into a Road Warrior Tool

When it burst onto the computing scene in the mid-eighties, Windows included a basic calculator with the usual arithmetic functions. Today the calculator sports many new features that help not only math students, but world travelers.

Specifically, the calculator now includes a wide variety of converters, letting you calculate currency exchange rates, metric values, and a variety of other measurements.

To access Calculator’s different conversion modes, follow these steps:

1. Click the Start menu, type Calculator into the Search box, and press Enter.
2. Click the Menu icon in Calculator’s upper-left corner.
3. From the menu’s Converter section, choose what you want to convert. Choose Currency, for example, to convert from dollars to Euros.
4. Enter the amount you want to convert and the currency of your currently visited country.

As soon as you choose the type of currency, Calculator looks up the current exchange rate and lists how far that much money will go in the country you’re visiting.

5 FAQs about Windows 11 Laptops and Tablets