On Fri, Jan 6, 2023 at 09:09 PM, Karen Reynolds wrote:

My issue for search is not knowing what the item I want to change or adjust is called.

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And the beauty of modern search is you don't need to.  It does a bang up job of finding things using natural language queries and fuzzy logic.
 
You can see this for yourself for things you do know.  Use some phrase that gets at what you're seeking, but without naming it.  It's likely to turn up in the search results, and near the top.
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Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)  

It’s not lack of contact with the world off campus that leads to the liberal views common in academia — it’s being trained to think critically and practicing this craft daily as we look at the world around us that makes us the libs conservatives so dislike.

     ~ Eliot A. Brenowitz, Seattle; New York Times, Letters, Tales of Town and Gown: Is the Campus Isolated?, August 20, 2022

On Fri, Jan 6, 2023 at 08:06 PM, Karen Reynolds wrote:

Thanks.

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You're quite welcome.  I'm literally on Day One of Windows 11 on my daily driver laptop, having upgraded it just last night.

While I still find it incredibly similar to Windows 10, there are definitely certain subtle, but potentially annoying, differences.  I'm still loving Windows Search and Settings Search for finding things that are in some obscure corner of settings (and it was the same way under 10, too).
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Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)  

It’s not lack of contact with the world off campus that leads to the liberal views common in academia — it’s being trained to think critically and practicing this craft daily as we look at the world around us that makes us the libs conservatives so dislike.

     ~ Eliot A. Brenowitz, Seattle; New York Times, Letters, Tales of Town and Gown: Is the Campus Isolated?, August 20, 2022

If you are talking about the list of apps that can give you notifications that are located in Settings, System, Notifications, anything that can be toggled off can be toggled back on, and vice versa.

If you're referring to something else, I'd need to know exactly what Settings category and specific pane you're looking at.
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Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)  

It’s not lack of contact with the world off campus that leads to the liberal views common in academia — it’s being trained to think critically and practicing this craft daily as we look at the world around us that makes us the libs conservatives so dislike.

     ~ Eliot A. Brenowitz, Seattle; New York Times, Letters, Tales of Town and Gown: Is the Campus Isolated?, August 20, 2022

Karen,

My guess is that you have the Task View button in the taskbar which, if activated, creates new virtual desktops, each of which is its own window and it behaves precisely as a desktop does.  Some people love the ability to have multiple desktops, others hate it.  If this button is on your taskbar, before you remove it be sure to activate it and see if you have existing virtual desktops active, as you'd want to close those before removing the button.  You can see what desktops you may have created by hitting WinKey + TAB, then right/left arrowing (depending on which one had focus to begin with).  You can also skip opening the Task View and use the keyboard shortcut WinKey + CTRL + Left or Right Arrow to move among your existing desktops.  If you want to close a desktop you currently have open, hit WinKey + CTRL + F4

The button is removed/turned off in Settings, Personalization, Taskbar, where there is a toggle for that button.  I just discovered when I reactivated it to test everything out that I had two additional virtual desktops I had created ages ago, and never closed, that even survived the upgrade from Windows 10 to Windows 11.  I'd had this button turned off for ages now.

ALT + TAB will only switch between applications on the desktop that currently has focus, but there are ways you can end up venturing into other desktops unintentionally.

I suspect once you have only a single desktop, and have turned off the task view button, your world will go back to normal.  This whole setup even existed under Windows 10, but I long ago hid the Task View button under Windows 10.
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Brian - Virginia, USA - Windows 11 Pro, 64-Bit, Version 22H2, Build 22621; Office 2016, Version 16.0.15726.20188, 32-bit; Android 12 (MIUI 13)  

It’s not lack of contact with the world off campus that leads to the liberal views common in academia — it’s being trained to think critically and practicing this craft daily as we look at the world around us that makes us the libs conservatives so dislike.

     ~ Eliot A. Brenowitz, Seattle; New York Times, Letters, Tales of Town and Gown: Is the Campus Isolated?, August 20, 2022