You may have discovered that your Windows PC recently updated itself, whether you wanted it to or not, when Microsoft started automatically upgrading Windows 11 PCs with its major annual update in late January. It is an optional upgrade since its release in September. But that’s okay: there’s plenty of new stuff to check out in the massive Windows 11 2022 Update, codenamed 22H2. The system has been polished up a bit pretty much everywhere – you’ve probably noticed some of the more obvious changes to the interface, such as new volume change icons.
Here are five of the more substantial changes you should check out first in the Windows 11 2022 Update. If you want to dive even deeper down the Windows 11 rabbit hole, check out our guide to 10 Windows 11 tips and tricks we use to customize our PCs.
Clipchamp: a new, free video editor
Windows now has a new default video editor: Clipchamp. As a kind of spiritual successor to, say, Windows Movie Maker, it’s simpler and more accessible than professional video editors – the sort of thing you can use for a quick cut or fade-in when sharing a YouTube video with friends. The tool includes the usual basic timeline and editing capabilities and can upload directly to YouTube, TikTok, and various web storage services.
Mark Hachman / Foundry
As of Windows 11 version 22H2, Clipchamp should be included in your operating system – look for it in the Start menu. If it’s not there, you can download it for free from the Microsoft Store. Here’s a full guide to the basics of this new tool.
Tabs in File Explorer
Power users have been waiting for this for a long time. Tabs are a feature that more sophisticated alternative file browsers have used for decades, and Microsoft finally—And last but not least—provided a tabbed file explorer in the Windows 11 2022 update. Here’s a full guide on how to use them.
Mark Hachman/IDG
To open a new tab in an Explorer window, just click the “+” button in the top menu bar. Tabs work as you would in any modern web browser, although you can’t (yet) click and drag them into a new Explorer window. While you’re here, check out the new, streamlined menu on the left, with faster access to system folders and your most-used locations.
If you like having lots of apps at your fingertips in the Start menu, you’ll love the new folders feature. It works more or less like folders on the home screen for Android or iOS (or perhaps more relevantly, Chrome OS). Any two or more shortcuts can be combined in a folder and each folder can have a custom name.
Michael Crider/IDG
To get started, just click on one Start Menu icon and drag it onto another. When you see them both shrink, release the mouse button and a folder will be created automatically. Click the new folder, then click its title to rename it. All additional programs can be dragged into or out of the folder and you can have as many folders as you want.
New ways to use the Snap Bar
The Snap Bar is one of the most useful multitasking tools in newer versions of Windows. You may have seen it if you regularly drag windows by their title bar: it’s that thing that lets you easily move them to half, third, or quadrant of your screen. But there are new ways to access it.
Michael Crider/IDG
Move your mouse cursor (don’t click!) over the Maximize window button, between the Close (X) and Minimize (_) buttons in the upper right corner. You will see the six most common layout options. Click on one of the subgrids in this popup to send the window to that location. You can also activate this view by typing Win + Z, then a number, then a number again to “drill” to the options.
Renewed Notepad
NotePad is one of the oldest, simplest tools in all of Windows, but this humble text editor is a little more capable than you may remember. In its most basic version, it now follows the dark or light color scheme in your personalization settings.
Michael Crider/IDG
Microsoft may have even more in store for the humble NotePad. As you read this, test versions of Windows 11 are being updated with notepad tabs in a similar addition to Windows Explorer. Whether this will make it to the full release remains to be seen.
Want to discover even more cool computer tricks? Check out our roundup of 10 little-known Windows features that will blow your mind.
