7 ms·

I am still looking forward for the option to ungroup task bar buttons, preferably with titles. Again! Something that was there before, worked, and was useful. B

I am still looking forward for the option to ungroup task bar buttons, preferably with titles. Again! Something that was there before, worked, and was useful. But some designer decided we don't need that, to the bin with it!

alganet 4y ago
If you're willing to tweak your installation, you can revert to the Windows 10 taskbar using the free third-party ExplorerPatcher utility. It has an option to not combine taskbar items and a lot of other goodies.
- mihaaly 4y ago
  Wasn't this corrupted by one of the Windows updates? Or was that the other product? Got the whole UI frozen or such. I read about third party apps that hack back features this way or the other but I am still hoping a bit that MS will get back their senses and not some - potentially fragile to underlying OS structure change - third party app is required to make things functional again. But I am around the breaking point actually. I use several insteance of the same app all the time and switching simply between those using the taskbar is just not working, bogus, unpredictable, not fulfilling the purpose. I cannot relly get used to it and starting to give up hope. The usability of Windows diminished a lot to me.
  - alganet 4y ago
    It never broke for me. I've been using since October. There has been a large update since, but the app repatched explorer flawlessly. I also use a lot of other funky stuff (system icon changers, theme patchers, etc gotta get that rice). I also remove a lot of stuff using SophiaApp. There has been some usability turndowns for me in the past years, but two things keep me hooked: snap windows (built in) and powertoys (ms-made but requires an install). I can't imagine myself without these two anymore.
    - IIsi50MHz 4y ago
      I like some of the features of AquaSnap, including more window-snapping options, better than the built-in snapping. It does have rather more features than its name implies, like "shake a window to toggle Always On Top" (this enabled one is enabled by default, with an adjustable threshold).
  - jccalhoun 4y ago
    I was using explorer patcher when I did the update to 22H2 and it really screwed up my computer. After many tries I had to boot from a usb drive to get safemode to finally boot so I could uninstall explorer patcher. But after a week of Windows 11's "grouped" taskbar buttons I risked reinstalling explorer patcher and it worked fine.
cokeandpepsi 4y ago
I'm not sure why they rushed out the release, Windows 10 was and is fine and I don't think any customers were really interested in this new version/ui update/whatever total blunder imo but I think most people are just happy it's not as screwed up as whatever the hell Windows8 was for me personally besides the common complaints just getting to the weather widget is now a huge microannoyance that drives me up the wall
- oblak 4y ago
  I am still baffled by the whole Windows 8 drama. All they did was they replaced a menu with another one. Everything else was the same or better. Supposed power users freaking out about something completely inconsequential. What the hell is wrong with people
  - transfire 4y ago
    I liked Windows 8. And still use it on one computer. The PDF reader app that used Windows 8 design principles has one of the most intuitive interfaces, IMO. Now they’ve gone and half-baked that design in new software and it’s less intuitive, eg clicking file menu item and a whole new screen appears.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    Windows 8 with Metro and Start Screen was practically unusable, with the desktop in a /desktop computer/ relegated to third-rate citizen status. Any other Windows UI even as far back as Windows 1 is better than the piece of hot, useless garbage that was Windows 8.
    - oblak 4y ago
      This is exactly the mindless vitriol I had in mind. Flow A: hit a button, a menu with text input and pictures shows up Flow B: hit a button, a full screen with text input and pictures shows up A is perfect, and B is "practically unusable".
      - 4y ago
eCa 4y ago
One of the first things I installed recently on my first Win11 computer was StartAllBack[1]. It’s not perfect but the standard taskbar is so bad that I had to fix it somehow. [1] https://www.startallback.com/ https://www.startallback.com/
- vasqw 4y ago
  Costs money.
  - layer8 4y ago
    I‘d pay a 100 times that amount to get a new Windows with consistent classic UI (e.g. Windows 2000 style).
  - daemin 4y ago
    So does Windows itself. If you're afraid to or don't want to pay for software then you should probably use some variant of GNU/Linux instead.
    - switch007 4y ago
      Windows is free (as in beer), if you can live with the minor nags, minor lack of customisation and watermarking.
    - vasqw 4y ago
      Windows doesn't cost money because I pirate it. I could pirate this program as well but it's probably going to be harder to find a clean, recent version of it.
      - Beltalowda 4y ago
        How dare people charge money as compensation for their time! Can't they just live off sunlight like everyone else?!?!
        4y ago
jeroenhd 4y ago
Microsoft seemed intent on removing settings and features that only a small segment of their telemetry showed enabled, probably because of some code cleanup efforts. This is despite their earlier attempt to convince everyone to use the weird 3D image editor instead of MS Paint. A real shame, because they showed with Windows 7 that they can redesign the OS UI without giving up features from earlier versions if they want to. Bugs like "the task bar is 20 pixels taller on my second screen" wouldn't have come up if they'd stuck to restyling their old code base. I find Microsoft's modern designs very comparable to the GNOME designs, in that they're eager to remove common features to build an overarching operating system theme. I like GNOME's design, much more than Windows 11's, but I don't think taking directions from a heavily criticised DE is the right move.
- phpisthebest 4y ago
  I dont like either, both take their lead from mac os, which I also do not like I am a gnome2 person, KDE, win7, etc type UI, if I wanted a mac I would buy a mac. There was a post on here a few months ago from a former MS engineer talking about how a large part of MS design team were all MAC users.
  - numpad0 4y ago
    A lot of junior webdevs, iOS app devs and designers were buying Macs to run testing/staging envs, and they have a lot of leverages, so MS had to do what they did.
    - phpisthebest 4y ago
      Outsized influence IMO. Enterprise is still king, and we here in Enterprise Ops are not happy. Microsoft needs to remember where its money comes from, and it is not jr webdevs
fulltimeloser 4y ago
I miss the vertical task bar option. Vertical space is more valuable than horizontal with 16x9 higher aspect ratio.
- SrZorro 4y ago
  Im not updating to windows 10+ until they bring it back. I have 3 16x9 monitors. Why do I have to use 16*3 width of my screen for the taskbar when 1 vertical taskbar in 1 screen is enough?
matsemann 4y ago
Yup, the sole reason I downgraded back to 10. So stupid to force me to loose seconds each time I use the taskbar. Aka all the time.
jabbany 4y ago
This! So much this! What's the point of having a taskbar that only groups by app...This has been one of the major pain points of me using Mac OS and it is immensely sad that Windows 11 has also taken this approach. At least some Linux DEs still let me keep my app windows ungrouped...
- kk_cz 4y ago
  this works: https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher
  - jabbany 4y ago
    I mean if I'm at the point of having to monkeypatch the explorer executable, I might as well not use Windows...
- mihaaly 4y ago
  Luckily with macOS there is the way of expose (renamed) and hot corners that allows switching based on various logic by a swing of the mouse both lightning fast and visual (easy and quick to locate things and trace what is happening), very natural to me from the very first time I tried. (this allowed Mac + VM products like Parallels with coherence mode to work superior to any Windows practice in this reagard - better in handling multiple windows than Windows, hehe - having Win in a VM was my preferred way of working with Windows for a decade or so - only changed because of new job with different IT practices, and lately with the looong transition of Intel to ARM processors and the consequent difficulties with x64 Win systems and apps. All Windows window became a Mac window, switching between those very visually and quickly, superior to Windows way, even with the then working taskbar practices) Unluckily in Windows the taskbar became more essential than the dock in macOS for switching windows - on Mac I use the dock to start new instances or quitting the app (differing philosophy of window and app lifetime between mac and win), not much of a switching - and then they ruined this essential taskbar thing without good alternative on Windows (Ctrl + Tab is more like a complementary thing than alternative).
  - 4y ago
olivermuty 4y ago
Lmao, I am not able to group it! I have two browser profiles and no matter what I do they come up as separate tasks on the task bar.. I am not able to group them up. I would also like to alt tab to them as a whole, then tab between the group windows instead. Luckily win11 is just a game launcher for me these days, so I only manage to get so and so aggravated :D
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
rightbyte 4y ago
Win XP had this right-click on group in the bar and you could spread the windows evenly on the screen. It was really useful for Matlab plots but for some reason they removed it for Win 7.
noisem4ker 4y ago
There's a hope: its comeback appears to be under development. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33781752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33781752
- mihaaly 4y ago
  Hooray!
ss48 4y ago
I've been using StartAllBack for this after upgrading to Windows 11, and it's worked out pretty well.
CrimsonRain 4y ago
Absolutely. I had to find something for this. And thankfully, some guy was annoyed enough to build this: https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher

alganet 4y ago

If you're willing to tweak your installation, you can revert to the Windows 10 taskbar using the free third-party ExplorerPatcher utility. It has an option to not combine taskbar items and a lot of other goodies.

mihaaly 4y ago
Wasn't this corrupted by one of the Windows updates? Or was that the other product? Got the whole UI frozen or such. I read about third party apps that hack back features this way or the other but I am still hoping a bit that MS will get back their senses and not some - potentially fragile to underlying OS structure change - third party app is required to make things functional again. But I am around the breaking point actually. I use several insteance of the same app all the time and switching simply between those using the taskbar is just not working, bogus, unpredictable, not fulfilling the purpose. I cannot relly get used to it and starting to give up hope. The usability of Windows diminished a lot to me.
- alganet 4y ago
  It never broke for me. I've been using since October. There has been a large update since, but the app repatched explorer flawlessly. I also use a lot of other funky stuff (system icon changers, theme patchers, etc gotta get that rice). I also remove a lot of stuff using SophiaApp. There has been some usability turndowns for me in the past years, but two things keep me hooked: snap windows (built in) and powertoys (ms-made but requires an install). I can't imagine myself without these two anymore.
  - IIsi50MHz 4y ago
    I like some of the features of AquaSnap, including more window-snapping options, better than the built-in snapping. It does have rather more features than its name implies, like "shake a window to toggle Always On Top" (this enabled one is enabled by default, with an adjustable threshold).
- jccalhoun 4y ago
  I was using explorer patcher when I did the update to 22H2 and it really screwed up my computer. After many tries I had to boot from a usb drive to get safemode to finally boot so I could uninstall explorer patcher. But after a week of Windows 11's "grouped" taskbar buttons I risked reinstalling explorer patcher and it worked fine.

cokeandpepsi 4y ago

I'm not sure why they rushed out the release, Windows 10 was and is fine and I don't think any customers were really interested in this new version/ui update/whatever total blunder imo but I think most people are just happy it's not as screwed up as whatever the hell Windows8 was for me personally besides the common complaints just getting to the weather widget is now a huge microannoyance that drives me up the wall

oblak 4y ago
I am still baffled by the whole Windows 8 drama. All they did was they replaced a menu with another one. Everything else was the same or better. Supposed power users freaking out about something completely inconsequential. What the hell is wrong with people
- transfire 4y ago
  I liked Windows 8. And still use it on one computer. The PDF reader app that used Windows 8 design principles has one of the most intuitive interfaces, IMO. Now they’ve gone and half-baked that design in new software and it’s less intuitive, eg clicking file menu item and a whole new screen appears.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  Windows 8 with Metro and Start Screen was practically unusable, with the desktop in a /desktop computer/ relegated to third-rate citizen status. Any other Windows UI even as far back as Windows 1 is better than the piece of hot, useless garbage that was Windows 8.
  - oblak 4y ago
    This is exactly the mindless vitriol I had in mind. Flow A: hit a button, a menu with text input and pictures shows up Flow B: hit a button, a full screen with text input and pictures shows up A is perfect, and B is "practically unusable".
    - 4y ago

eCa 4y ago

One of the first things I installed recently on my first Win11 computer was StartAllBack[1]. It’s not perfect but the standard taskbar is so bad that I had to fix it somehow. [1] https://www.startallback.com/ https://www.startallback.com/

vasqw 4y ago
Costs money.
- layer8 4y ago
  I‘d pay a 100 times that amount to get a new Windows with consistent classic UI (e.g. Windows 2000 style).
- daemin 4y ago
  So does Windows itself. If you're afraid to or don't want to pay for software then you should probably use some variant of GNU/Linux instead.
  - switch007 4y ago
    Windows is free (as in beer), if you can live with the minor nags, minor lack of customisation and watermarking.
  - vasqw 4y ago
    Windows doesn't cost money because I pirate it. I could pirate this program as well but it's probably going to be harder to find a clean, recent version of it.
    - Beltalowda 4y ago
      How dare people charge money as compensation for their time! Can't they just live off sunlight like everyone else?!?!
      - 4y ago

jeroenhd 4y ago

Microsoft seemed intent on removing settings and features that only a small segment of their telemetry showed enabled, probably because of some code cleanup efforts. This is despite their earlier attempt to convince everyone to use the weird 3D image editor instead of MS Paint. A real shame, because they showed with Windows 7 that they can redesign the OS UI without giving up features from earlier versions if they want to. Bugs like "the task bar is 20 pixels taller on my second screen" wouldn't have come up if they'd stuck to restyling their old code base. I find Microsoft's modern designs very comparable to the GNOME designs, in that they're eager to remove common features to build an overarching operating system theme. I like GNOME's design, much more than Windows 11's, but I don't think taking directions from a heavily criticised DE is the right move.

phpisthebest 4y ago
I dont like either, both take their lead from mac os, which I also do not like I am a gnome2 person, KDE, win7, etc type UI, if I wanted a mac I would buy a mac. There was a post on here a few months ago from a former MS engineer talking about how a large part of MS design team were all MAC users.
- numpad0 4y ago
  A lot of junior webdevs, iOS app devs and designers were buying Macs to run testing/staging envs, and they have a lot of leverages, so MS had to do what they did.
  - phpisthebest 4y ago
    Outsized influence IMO. Enterprise is still king, and we here in Enterprise Ops are not happy. Microsoft needs to remember where its money comes from, and it is not jr webdevs

fulltimeloser 4y ago

I miss the vertical task bar option. Vertical space is more valuable than horizontal with 16x9 higher aspect ratio.

SrZorro 4y ago
Im not updating to windows 10+ until they bring it back. I have 3 16x9 monitors. Why do I have to use 16*3 width of my screen for the taskbar when 1 vertical taskbar in 1 screen is enough?

matsemann 4y ago

Yup, the sole reason I downgraded back to 10. So stupid to force me to loose seconds each time I use the taskbar. Aka all the time.

jabbany 4y ago

This! So much this! What's the point of having a taskbar that only groups by app...This has been one of the major pain points of me using Mac OS and it is immensely sad that Windows 11 has also taken this approach. At least some Linux DEs still let me keep my app windows ungrouped...

kk_cz 4y ago
this works: https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher
- jabbany 4y ago
  I mean if I'm at the point of having to monkeypatch the explorer executable, I might as well not use Windows...
mihaaly 4y ago
Luckily with macOS there is the way of expose (renamed) and hot corners that allows switching based on various logic by a swing of the mouse both lightning fast and visual (easy and quick to locate things and trace what is happening), very natural to me from the very first time I tried. (this allowed Mac + VM products like Parallels with coherence mode to work superior to any Windows practice in this reagard - better in handling multiple windows than Windows, hehe - having Win in a VM was my preferred way of working with Windows for a decade or so - only changed because of new job with different IT practices, and lately with the looong transition of Intel to ARM processors and the consequent difficulties with x64 Win systems and apps. All Windows window became a Mac window, switching between those very visually and quickly, superior to Windows way, even with the then working taskbar practices) Unluckily in Windows the taskbar became more essential than the dock in macOS for switching windows - on Mac I use the dock to start new instances or quitting the app (differing philosophy of window and app lifetime between mac and win), not much of a switching - and then they ruined this essential taskbar thing without good alternative on Windows (Ctrl + Tab is more like a complementary thing than alternative).
- 4y ago

olivermuty 4y ago

Lmao, I am not able to group it! I have two browser profiles and no matter what I do they come up as separate tasks on the task bar.. I am not able to group them up. I would also like to alt tab to them as a whole, then tab between the group windows instead. Luckily win11 is just a game launcher for me these days, so I only manage to get so and so aggravated :D

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

rightbyte 4y ago

Win XP had this right-click on group in the bar and you could spread the windows evenly on the screen. It was really useful for Matlab plots but for some reason they removed it for Win 7.

noisem4ker 4y ago

There's a hope: its comeback appears to be under development. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33781752 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33781752

mihaaly 4y ago
Hooray!

ss48 4y ago

I've been using StartAllBack for this after upgrading to Windows 11, and it's worked out pretty well.

CrimsonRain 4y ago

Absolutely. I had to find something for this. And thankfully, some guy was annoyed enough to build this: https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher