Forum Discussion
Solved
How to let windows 11 "never combine taskbar buttons"?
How to let windows 11 "never combine taskbar buttons"?
- The November 2023 update added “never combined” mode on the taskbar for Windows 11. To find this feature, go to Settings > Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviors. Set Combine taskbar buttons and hide labels to Never. It also added a separate setting for turning this feature on for other taskbars when you use multiple monitors.
1,327 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- Please everyone, use this link to microsoft feedback hub and if you haven't upvoted this feedback already please do it today. The link will ask you to allow it to open the feedback hub which is part of windows.
https://insider.windows.com/en-us/feedbackhub/fb?contextid=215&feedbackid=70fc827b-26fd-48f7-8853-afb3ecc379af&form=1&utm_source=product-placement&utm_medium=feedback-hub&utm_campaign=feedback-hub-redirect
If you do not trust this link, I understand, please just go to your taskbar setting and click feedback hub enter taskbar never combine in the search and this feedback should be on top. Upvote this one as it has over 34,000 upvotes and the more it gets the better.
Get everyone you know to upvote it. To let Windows 11 "never combine taskbar buttonshttps://chatgpt4online.org/" follow these steps:
- Right-click on an empty area of the taskbar.
- Select "Taskbar settings" from the menu that appears.
- Scroll down to the "Combine taskbar buttons" section.
- Select "Never" from the dropdown menu.
- Close the Settings window.
Once you complete these steps, Windows 11 will never combine taskbar buttons. Each open application will have its own button on the taskbar, making it easier to switch between applications.
- I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but you've just described how to accomplish that in Windows 10. Ten as in 10 as in 2x5=10.
At the present time, there is no such option in Windows 11. Eleven, as in, 7-11, but 11 not 7.
There wouldn't be hundreds of messages in here if your suggestion worked for Windows 11.
- So at the time of writing this there are 283k views, 586 Likes, and 1,053 replies to this change in standard (notice I don't call it a feature!, this was the standard not a feature). Yet nothing has been done since July 2021. Yet I seem to get almost weekly updates from MS on other stuff, most of which does nothing productive (like recently changing my tabs in excel to rounded instead of sharp corners). These frequent changes and changes to look/appearance and sometimes functionality are frustrating. It is increasingly frustrating as standard features like do not combine are taken away which significantly decrease my productivity EVERY DAY! I'm due for a new computer in about a year, if things don't improve I'm going to seriously consider an Apple as all the benefits I have loved about MS over the last 30 years are quickly eroding.
- I hate that Microsoft has made a universal decision to take this option away from the end-user. I don't care about how multiple entries of the same application (different files) on the task bar may look cluttered. All I know is that the separation of different files enable me to work much more efficiently. Not having the option to "never combine" is a serious flaw in Windows 11
- Who are the Microsoft people responsible for this change? I am curious about their reasoning for removing the ability for people to "never combine taskbar buttons" ... were they solely looking to make Windows users less productive (as that is what this change does, it makes users less productive) or what was their goal?
Who are the MS employees responsible for this change?- I suspect it was marketing letting the developers off the hook. Lazy developers? Bad sales and marketing? They cut corners to get it out and now it can't get back on the priority list.
And they probably went through a lot of user testing and misunderstood the results, thinking users who matter won't care.
To fix this, everyone who comes here needs to hit the LIKE BUTTON on everyone who made a comment. VOTE VOTE VOTE! Please?
- This will be of limited help, but if you are using multiple screens, you can *sort of* achieve this by having windows only appear on the taskbar on the display where they are open.
Personalization > Taskbar > Taskbar behaviours > When using multiple displays, show my taskbar apps on...
Select "Taskbar where window is open" (or, to some extent, "Main taskbar and taskbar where window is open").
*If* you're happy working across different screens, and if you have no more than one window per screen, you'll have clawed back some semblance of sanity.
Just another baffling step by Microsoft. Why keep taking away what are very obviously desired features? We hate your "improvements" enough as it is.- I've had things set up that way since I did my initial configuration after my downgrade to Win11 (I had to for specific cloud compatibility). I have multiple instances of multiple things open all the time and I bounce all over, so it feels kind of cruel to have to go and search around for what I'm looking for. What's most important are the LABELS identifying what each window is.
I think it would be awesome if they brought this back but also added a separate scaler just for the taskbar. They broke the ability to change the size, as well.
- It's unproductive! (I am 100% aware that this comment is duplicate of many - by design, as much useless as always grouping taskbar buttons...)
- This is a 100% make or break feature for me, other things bother me but nothing as much as this...as far as I've seen anyway. I feared this would happen when i saw taskbar items combined by default in windows 10 and it appears my fears were not unfounded.
This is not only a productivity nightmare to force combination for a number of applications but i dare say a power user necessity and I say that as someone who runs multi instance applications for a variety of work and personal tasks. This affects my job as well as I cannot depend on third party scripts, regedit, etc to bring this back and I know due to Win 10's EOL that 11 will become mandatory in enterprise environments. It has to remain a core feature.
Desktop Engineers
Network Admins
Spreadsheet Jockeys
People who respond to hundreds of emails a day
Developers
and on and on and on are all potentially affected by this.
Microsoft needs to recruit a power user community and engage with the general tech community in meaningful discussions instead of seemingly only appealing to lowest common denominator and/or casual users. I'm not saying they can't engage with more average home user, they absolutely should. That's how you increase market share.
However Microsoft, those are not your only users. Those are the " Windows Home" users. Start making "Windows Pro" about the pros and engage the enterprise community as well allow the selection of things like this to be determined by group policy in enterprise versions. Otherwise what is the purpose of different windows versions other than a cost barrier model for seemingly random features? Am i missing something here?
I'd even be willing to pay more for a true "pro" version of Windows. Start tailoring to your wide and diverse user base like many other developers are doing these days.
Is that really too much to ask?But is this a matter of Pro vrs Home or anything else? The default in at least windows 10 and maybe even w7 was to combine the buttons. I hated that and it took almost no time before I went digging and found the setting to break them back out the way we all like. When I saw the w11 taskbar in the middle, I thought, yuck. Then someone mentioned, well, you can move that, but there are other taskbar problems. I finally "upgraded" on one of my laptops. I eventually moved the taskbar, but I was horrified when I found out what the other taskbar problems are. It's unacceptable. I regret the upgrade on the one machine I did. I am really fortunate that ms got WSL2 working in w10. I was close to upgrading my best machine just for wsl2.
No more upgrades for me and I would like to downgrade the one that I did upgrade.
My suspicions? This is pure laziness on the part of marketing again. They tested and found that lots of the idiot, er, excuse me, typical users like the buttons combined. They didn't ask enough users and they didn't BOTHER to finish the job and add the option.
All I can say is...
FIX IT!
yes, just... FIX IT!
We want it fixed.I think it's pretty obvious from the responses here. We HATE the combined buttons. HATE. As in, despise. As in, we don't want them combined. As in...
FIX IT!!!!!
- omg, the OP date is 2nd of July 2021 and the issue is still unresolved on 20th of March 2023.
TWO YEARS MICROSOFT.
And then you wonder why your new versions don't get quick distribution?
I transitioned to Win10 only in 2019 after 4 years of beta-testing others had to suffer through.
Stop shooting yourselves in the leg.
You manage to break the simplest things!- Fellow label-lovers, rejoice!
It took 20 months and one person who works in the IT dpt of the org with Premium MS Support to get a replacement SL5 laptop with Win11 to achieve some reaction from MS - today I was informed that my complaint was transferred to Windows team person and I will be contacted some time soon.
I will be raising the label view and the option to have those labels on the screen where the app is open. I will also mention how Win11 start menu is a downgraded mess compared to Win10 where you can group your shortcuts, resize them, etc.
We're few, but we're strong! 🙂
In the meantime, I use ExplorerPatcher from github https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher
You can make both the taskbar and start menu to behave like in Win10 with it. Unfortunately, you can't pin all the apps you could in Win10, but still a workaround.
please bring this feature back!
