Windows 10 Desktop?

[KeriMoonbeam]

I've been reading posts on here about lost desktops with some update to Windows 10.  I'm afraid I'm not exactly sure of the terminology, so my research didn't help much.  But I used to be able to left click the "start" button and what I call my desktop (a few icons like recycle bin, an icon for my printer - stuff I mostly don't touch) - so when I'd left click "start," my screen would show lots of icons or tiles for things like MS Outlook, a couple weather apps (or whatever they are!), Spider Solitaire, Store, Excel, Word, calculator, etc.).  So, maybe they're gone for good - as well as the function that allows you to swipe in from the right side of the screen and bring up settings and  such, I think.

 

I don't care that those things are gone or different, but where do I go to find things like "Excel" that I use fairly frequently?  The shopping icon is now on my taskbar now even though I almost never use it - unlike Excel.

 

If it's something with my computer though (Acer Aspire/M), I would appreciate someone letting me know so I can get my computer fixed.  By the way, I semi-tried a lot of the suggested things but generally ran into obstacles because my Windows 10 just doesn't have what the instructions said - like one talked about accessing settings by swiping in from the right - I no longer have that function.

 

Thanks so much and happy computering.