Forum Discussion

Steel Contributor

Oct 07, 2021

How to enable 'Never Combine taskbar buttons'. Windows 11 ?

Hi @all I did not find this function 'Never Combine taskbar buttons'. How can this function be found and enabled in windows 11? I can't work with multi-tab on windows 11. Thank you!

Application Management

Brass Contributor

Apr 29, 2023

WARNING for those of you using ExplorerPatcher to add "never combine" to Windows 11

I just did a Windows Update that broke Windows Explorer completely when using ExplorerPatcher. I took me almost an hour to find a way to remove ExplorerPatch without any Explorer/Tasks (as in Windows was only blinking and I couln't even reach the System Control to uninstall it from there).

I did the following:

Hit Control + ALT + DELETE to open the Task Manager
In the Task Manager Click "Run new Task" and Type "chrome" to open the Chrome Browser
In Chrome go to https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher and download the latest version
In the Task Manager Click "Run new Task" and type "cmd" to open a Commandline. Be sure to click the checkbox with "create the task with administrative privileges"!
In the comandline navigate to your Download folder, e.g "cd /users/your-username/Downloads
Type ep_setup.exe /uninstall

This uninstalls Explorer Patcher.

Thank you Microsoft for breaking the one Tool that made your messed up, worthless taskbar useable...

omersayli

Brass Contributor

Apr 29, 2023

Thanks for the warning. I update "explorer pathcher" before installing big Windows updates (right-click on a free space of the taskbar, Properties-->Updates). I have updated it, let's see what happens

Update: No problem, just update "explorer pathcher" before Windows update (right-click on a free space of the taskbar, Properties-->Updates)

ceantuco
Steel Contributor
May 05, 2023
ditching windows 11... installed Debian stable and setup a vm with windows 10. done wasting time trying to finding the window i need.
omersayli
Brass Contributor
Apr 29, 2023
Yes, updating Explorer Patcher before Win11 update is needed. But if one encounters a problem, other than your solution, this is another way for uninstalling Explorer Patcher;

I ) Ctrl-alt-delete--> Task manager --> (Upper right corner) Run new task >> write "cmd" and select "Administrative privileges"
ii) In the opened command prompt, type "cd C:\Program Files\ExplorerPatcher"
iii) then uninstall it from its folder using "C:\Program Files\ExplorerPatcher setup.exe \uninstall"
matrium0
Brass Contributor
Apr 29, 2023
Thanks omersayli. It seems like the newest version of Explorer Patcher does indeed work with that Windows Update.

So I guess the best way is to update Explorer Patcher BEFORE running the windows update like you said. In case someone else runs into the problem with completely broken explorer (which disables taskbar, as well as a lot of other windows features completely) use my guideline above and just run "ep_setup.exe" (without the "/uninstall") to switch to the newest version of Explorer Patcher