(Oh baby, this is a throwback. I used to write articles about how you could have fun in places on computers that you shouldn't have fun in all the time.)
Sometimes, you get bored. And you may be at a Windows computer. And even possibly, you might not have much access to computer-y stuff. Installing new things might be beyond your current capabilities, and web games may be blocked or otherwise tracked. On pre-8 versions of Windows, you do get a game or two by default, but nowadays it's all on Windows 10 or 11. Boring.
But lo and behold, you can have fun with default software anyway. Any install of Window nowadays likely comes with some programs that you can play around with. If nothing else, you can at least be bored in front of a blank canvas, which makes you some sort of artist I'm pretty sure.
Before anything else, let's look at Windows itself. Specifically as of now, the desktop. Left click lets you select items. Single click selects once, and double click opens things. We're just trying to mess with the desktop however, so nothing good there yet. You can left click drag, which makes a selection box. Sometimes I just drag my mouse wildly to see the rectangle movement. With no icons on the desktop, it's fun to try to make it a perfect square, or at least as close as you can get visually. Boom, game. We've done it. We've cured boredom.
For about 2 minutes, probably. Let's move on.
Right click is a little more fun - we get a context menu with some good options. "New" lets you make a few different things. Folders, shortcuts, bitmap image, text document, and compressed folders (.zip files) are the mainstays, with other things showing up if you have other programs. Make a folder, you have a folder. You can rename and move around the things you make, so you've got some good layout customization. You could make some pixel art or a meme or two.
You can also make a racetrack. Make a closed loop of icons, click one, then use the arrow keys to move the selection. You've now got a track to run. You can put gaps in it and it'll work fine - in fact, you'll have to be careful about not skipping portions, as if you press an arrow key the selection will always do its absolute hardest to snap to something in that general direction. This can also be fun, just throwing around a bunch of icons and seeing where each arrow direction takes you.
That was fun. Let's build on this - any of the icons we can create will open its corresponding program. Shortcuts aren't much - you can type a location to a file or a website, and opening the shortcut will open the location. This is convenient for productivity reasons, but doesn't help us much at this time.
How about folders? Opening a folder or compressed folder boots you into File Explorer. File Explorer is great, you can explore files. This can be surprisingly enjoyable. Start at the C: drive. Either the Program Files folder or the Windows folder can be your first stop. Just take a look around, see what's there. Maybe open some files whose extension you recognize, although I'd restrict this to text files and media. Running random system stuff could cause issues. It's pretty neat, it's like a museum of how your computer is. You can do this with shared/network drives as well, or basically anywhere on your computer at all.
You could also run more interesting programs, but let's stay grounded here. Back to the desktop!
Opening a created text file opens Notepad by default. You can type words and non-words here, which allows for all sorts of creative experience. You could write a book, an article about enjoying basic OS functions, a list of all the emoticons you know, a self-insert fanfic into your favorite story that people might make fun of but is the true experience of what your mind makes so everyone else can go suck it, ASCII art, the letter "j" as many times as you can in 3 minutes, so on and so forth. It's truly a blank canvas, which can also fulfill a requirement for the "artist of some sort" thing I mentioned earlier.
Notepad is not a rich text editor. You get text. That's it. That being said, you actually can play with the font. Click the Format tab, then the Font... option. Any font you want, at any size you like. You'll only ever get one at a time, but it can make your typing experience a little better. I keep it classic, although for writing I also turn on Word Wrap, which is selectable in the same Format tab.
A monospace font (like Consolas, Notepad's default) is great for making emoticons and kaomoji, ASCII art, and other neat or cool patterns. See what you can come up with! It's pretty fun, albeit sometimes difficult just like any other visual art medium.
Maybe you're less of a paint using letters kind of person and more of a Paint from Microsoft Windows fan. Rather than opening a created text file, make a bitmap and open that instead. Now you're in Paint by default, and now we quite literally have a blank canvas. Paint isn't the most function complete drawing program, but it's certainly functional, and I've seen some truly impressive and effective art come from it. That doesn't mean you personally have to live up to those qualities - do whatever you want. Draw bad, draw good, draw fresh, bribe the art contest judges, draw in space so you have more room to breathe, make an obscure Bill Wurtz reference and apply it to the wrong medium, whatever you want. Here's a few actual ideas:
I've got 2 things worth mentioning. First, if you're in Windows 11, you get layers! Layers are fun, it makes visual art way harder to mess up if you know how to use them. Can I explain them? Not really. (I don't know how I've ever explained anything, to be completely honest with you.) Second, Paint now has a button that says "Edit with Paint 3D". Paint 3D is the 3D modeling software version of Paint - not fully featured, but you can still make some cool stuff. I have WAY less experience with Paint 3D than I do with Paint, but making basic stuff with a 3D modeling program is a ton of fun, so I do recommend checking it out despite how confused you may be the entire time. It also has 2D art features, which vaguely confuses me. I'm not exactly sure what Paint 3D is actually for. Oh well, it's fun.
Alright, a couple other basic things. The right click menu we started on has a bunch of options that I haven't mentioned. Under the view tab, you can change the icon size, which is maybe a little neat. You can also remove the grid snapping, which is very neat and could help make more interesting racetracks, as mentioned earlier. Display settings opens the display settings, which lets you manage your multiple monitors. I don't know if playing with the resolution counts as fun, but maybe it does.
Personalize from the same menu has more to do. You can change your desktop and lock screen backgrounds. Now might be a good time to refresh those if you haven't changed them in a while. You can also change your accent color, which is pretty fun as well. Start menu and Taskbar options are also available, so you can really screw up how Windows-y Windows is, or be one of those guys who puts their taskbar on the side. Honestly, the Fonts option is actually the biggest highlight for me here - not only can you look through all the fonts you have, but Windows also has a small selection of pleasant phrases used to show them off. They're pretty neat.
I think that's all I have for now. There's not really anywhere else to go from starting on the desktop itself, so if I write about this again we'll probably cover things in the Windows Accessories folder that I missed here, or maybe I'll do a deeper dive into Paint 3D. Until next time!