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Windows 11 Taskbar
Likely the first thing everyone notices about Windows 11 is that the taskbar at the bottom of the screen has shifted to the middle and there is an appearance of mostly familiar, but slightly redesigned icons as well as a few new ones. You'll also notice the re-addition of widgets on the left side of the taskbar. It is likely that all of your icons will still be on the taskbar where you pinned them before the update, but if not, you may need to re-pin them. Clicking the below image will show an example of a typical taskbar after the update to 11 with the re-added widget also pointed out for reference.
Now that we've oriented ourselves with the taskbar, we'll set about arranging it to preference.
Right-click the taskbar and the below options appear:
Click "Taskbar settings" and you'll be presented with a page in the "Settings" app "Personalization > Taskbar". This is where we'll make the changes we want.
First we'll look at the "Taskbar Items" section. The options are relatively self explanatory, but I've included an image of settings for those who wish to have to least cluttered experience which includes hiding the search bar, turning off Copilot, task view, and widgets. You may also choose to keep any of these on to use or try out.
The only other section we'll worry about is "Taskbar Behaviors" This is where we can get everything oriented to a more familiar place. These options are a little less self-explanatory, but again included are settings for those that prefer the most familiar experience. You can expand this section by clicking the small arrow at the right side of the section header. Most of these are completely optional and likely un-noticeable except for the "Taskbar Alignment" option which you can switch to left.
Once you've made these changes the taskbar should feel a little more familiar and behave similarly to Windows 10. If you've made all the same selections above it would look similar to the image below.
