Windows 11 taskbar labels

[Niko_V]

I was eager to install the official Windows 11 release today, however upon reading first I noticed that ungrouping taskbar icons / showing labels is not available anymore in Windows 11.

Why the heck would you remove such a useful feature? This is the only thing preventing me from installing Windows 11. Will this feature come back?

Might as well stick with Windows 10 until it sees its return (if ever). Solving this with third party tools is a no go.

[#2]

I'm sorry. Who said this was an argument?

I'm suggesting we need to leverage social media of prominent Microsoft developers to at least get a response to this feedback discussion.
You seem intent on making it about you though, so go for it!

[#3]

Well you didn't like my input.

You think Microsoft reads anything posted anywhere by any user? What planet do you come from?

[#4]

Start with the most public social media routes first. Below is a list. Feel free to add individual/prominent windows devs if you find them.
Twitter
@Windows
@Pernille-Eskebo
@MSFTnews
@MSdev
@WindowsAU
@WindowsCanada
@Windows_Japan
@MicrosoftIPC
@Lurie_MSFT
@WindowsDocs
@WindowsFrance

Instagram
@windows
@Pernille-Eskebo
@microsoftanz
@microsoftdeveloper
@windowsdeveloper

Facebook
@windowsdeveloper
@WindowsInsiderProgram
@windowsanz
@microsoftdeveloper

Would be great to see if Dave Plummer of youtube "dave's garage" fame has much pull or connections still at MS @davepl1968

[#5]

What if you wrote a letter to:

Microsoft Corporation
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA, USA 98052

[#6]

Good idea Sunny, keep them coming mate!

[#7]

@Niko_V Absolute shame that Microsoft if leaving out / removing functions that are used and relied upon by millions of its users and alienates them like this. What a terrible UX management.

[#8]

@ACA777 There's this thing called "The Windows Insider Program", don't people on there try it out, tell them it's stupid, so they don't implement it?  Absolutely zero people like any of the changes Microsoft makes.

[#9]

@brollin thank you very much, you're a life saver

[#10]

Has anybody tried Windhawk [1] + Taskbar Labels for Windows 11 [2]?

[1] https://windhawk.net
[2] https://windhawk.net/mods/taskbar-labels

[#11]

This is particularly infuriating if you're visually impaired, because I needed that text to see what I was clicking instead of trying to identify the tiny icons. Instead of having the text across the entire bottom, it's all condensed into one corner... and thus it's wasting all the space at the bottom. This is the sort of behavior that makes me start looking into alternative operating systems.
Funny enough, there is now third party software to restore the functionality they stripped out.

[#12]

@RobertPatrician Startallback (free but with a minor pestering dialog on startup, and a frowning face on the start menu, or just pay a few dollars) returns the taskbar and start menu to any version of windows you like and puts back in all the customisations.  I dislike the modern way.  I do things simply.  To start a program, I use the most recent apps in the start menu (I set it to 15 of them), anything not on there, I just start typing the name.  The taskbar is not for icons, it's for running programs, with labels written in English, why should I remember the icon for every single program I use?  Why should I not be able to tell if it's a link or a running program?  As for the desktop, just like a real desk, I use that for temporary things only.  No icons plastered all over it to start programs, which I can't see if there's a program running full screen!

[#13]

@sunnyrio Difficulty is that I"m on a government laptop. We can't just "go install some software" and it's a very hard sell to get something like StartAllBack installed. I'd gladly pay $20 right now to get my taskbar back, but it's just not an option.

[#14]

Oh, you have one of those type of admins. I prided myself in doing what the user wanted. You want startallback installed, I'd do it for you. You wanna change your own wallpaper, go ahead. Most are power hungry morons.

Actually, since you're visually impaired, tell them you need it.  It would be discriminating if they didn't let you.  Threaten to sue them or put an article in a newspaper.

[#15]

@sunnyrio I'm a federal employee on a government laptop. I'm working on the process to initiate the request to begin review for the StartAllBack software. The admin team is similarly unhappy with this change, because windows 11 was a solution in search of a problem.

[#16]

Government, oh dear. Good luck with that.

I really don't see any advantage in MS removing all the options. They made a wonderful menu back in XP/7 whenever it was. Then they took it all away and gave us useless nonsense.

[#17]

@RobertPatrician 

"I'm a federal employee on a government laptop"

Funny - we are in a public forum and it resembles advertising from other companies.

Anyone can write what they want -> but is it true?

In one thread, the scammer wrote that he is the CEO ... , to inspire trust, unfortunately you always need to have limited trust -> I ask everyone for it.

If you are visually impaired, do you use high contrast?

Do you have scaling magnification (non-standard), what level?

[#18]

Odd thing to question. I didn't claim to be anyone important, just setting out the environment under which I'm operating that prevents me from "Just installing 3rd party software to fix it."

[#19]

As he said, he never claimed to be important. Many people work for the government, he could be a secretary.

How will high contrast etc work for the nonsense of silly little icons with no words? They annoy me and I have perfect eyesight.

[#20]

Oh what's more, the indicator on the icon that you have a new email is so tiny that I have to specifically look for it. A tiny corner of an already tiny icon changing color as the indicator that my attention is needed? Not good.

[#21]

Even the indicator the program is running and not just a link to it, is too small to notice. I like to know what programs I have open! This is a basic requirement of an OS!