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t1tus3's avatar
t1tus3
Copper Contributor
Oct 28, 2022

Taskbar ungrouping

Do we know when there might be an update to fix one of the most idiotic features of Windows 11? Not being able to ungroup buttons on the taskbar. If I want to add a file to a mini...
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cparedes's avatar
cparedes
Copper Contributor
Nov 14, 2022
Yes, for the love of God please fix this! I don't know who's idiot idea it was to do this but they need to be fired. I have been using Windows for nearly 45 years and this is by far the stupidest thing I have ever seen. Did anyone bother to consider that it would kill productivity to expect users hover, then try to identify the tiny pop up box, before clicking what they want? Give us back the ability to ungroup!
  • seankovacs's avatar
    seankovacs
    Copper Contributor
    Dec 06, 2022
    They are trying to be like Apple I suppose. Don't be like Apple. It's more efficient if I have every window ungrouped so I can get to where I need to get to faster. Fire the PM that thought this was okay.
    • Vla Dunev's avatar
      Vla Dunev
      Brass Contributor
      Dec 06, 2022

      as a windows fanboy and person who works in a software company (not microsoft), I would like to tell you how PMing works in the real world.

      Windows supports a crazy variety of features (think for example of backward compatibility). All these features need support from the engineers.

      Obviously, some features need to be dropped (I can bet one of your latest rants was about "windows bloat"). What a smart PM does is, she looks at the stats how many people use certain feature. I personally never have seen anyone use ungrouped taskbar buttons.

      The nice thing about windows is, you can get the documentation and write your own little prog that would do the ungrouping. People will be grateful to you, you will get to see how many actually use this feature, and you will enjoy the experience of people writing to you complaints about your "idiotic" features not being properly implemented.

      • potatomutt's avatar
        potatomutt
        Copper Contributor
        Dec 23, 2022
        https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-11/how-to-enable-never-combine-taskbar-buttons-windows-11/m-p/2824344

        300+ replies, 800+k views, and over a year old. There are, I believe, 3 third party products referenced but they are unreliable because they seem to depend on Windows Updates not breaking the functionality.
        You may not personally know anyone that uses this functionality, but it was implemented (and toggle-able) in Windows 10 and I would classify it more as a removed/lacking feature rather than something users should just put up with. Having two windows of the same application open and being able to switch between them easily (ungrouped and with text labels instead of the exact same icon) is a non-trivial part of my UX and is a big reason why I have not updated to Windows 11 on my productivity machines.

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