Dealing with Taskbar Icons

I am helping a friend with his laptop running Windows 11, it is the lamest thing I have seen in a long time being an i3 1.2Ghz, 64bit system, 8Gb memory and 1GB drive with only a small portion used.

To me its a modern layout I am working to understand it (mine is an old fashioned XP-7 look so know where things are) but this has so many hidden things and system files with slight changes to their name, so trying not to disturb its owners setup.

Now I have run sfc /scannow and system check all OK, have also run de frag as it was turned Off, it is now more responsive but I think its loaded with taskbar start-ups so trying to figure out how to move them to desktop (make them inert so to speak) thus ease its boot up. Then when I get it more active can load a better antivirus to check that side, do not trust Norton's or Windows own.

Can you help please David