I had this same issue, but the only way I have found is to use something like Explorer Patcher [0], but it "solves" the problem by just replace the Win11 bar with the one from Win10

[0]: https://github.com/valinet/ExplorerPatcher

This is incredible, thank you for linking.

You run it, display instantly looks better, and has a very nicely laid out set of features to play with

Even things like the WiFi flyout (a term I didn't know) can be changed: https://i.imgur.com/JHVvzPG.png

Appears its author even dedicated a blog post specifically to this: https://valinet.ro/2021/11/18/Functional-Windows-10-flyouts-...

The article actually mentions ExplorerPatcher too. I experimented with several taskbar replacements and this is by far the best imo.

It's great that this exists but also sad that this has to exist.

It looks like this is relying on what are essentially hacks (injecting DLLs into the explorer related processes -- something that apparently can trigger AV false positives) to patch the proprietary DE in Windows, which might break after some future update, costing much of the stability that would go with something proprietary like Windows (at least what stability there is left to have...)

It can fix the context menu!

Oh hell yes. That was the worst change in Win11.

Thanks! I switched over to this and it's working great.

Yeah, not being able to un-group and show the titles is a big productivity loss.

So much so that when I recently got a new computer and had to reinstall everything anyways, I downgraded to win10 first.

Some other stuff that works better in win10 is the wifi/sound/battery stuff. That takes a few seconds to load in win11, and requires multiple clicks to do loads of stuff.

Or right clicking a file in win11 gives you this weird menu, so have to click one extra time to open the old menu that actually has the stuff I want (7zip, notepad++ shortcuts).

On win11 alt+tab sometimes hangs. No idea how they can screw up both ways to switch programs in one go.

I don't mean to derail this conversation, but what the ____ is this aka.ms? I go there and it asks if it can open some app I've never heard of. The app takes forever to open and when it finally does it shows me a minimalist login screen. I didn't try going past that. What's wrong with having a web page to take feedback? Why does it require a separate sluggish app?

Oh it’s the Microsoft’s private url shortener. This allows them to confuse everyone about what the heck is behind that link.

Like, sure, microsoft.com/visualstudio looks too obvious. What about aka.ms/vs, ha ha ! Good luck guessing what this is about. Phishing ? I can’t say… click on it to be sure.

(I suppose is some Twitter madness that has gone out of control).

"aka" is microsofts URL shortener service.

I don't know the official meaning - but I'm fairly sure it's for the abbreviation "Also Known As" - "AKA".

It's Microsoft's url shortcut system.

Beyond the obvious shortening feature, the main benefit is that MS can change the underlying resource the shortcut links to should they need to in the future.

aka.ms is just a bitly clone.

Just a bitly clone that they use in their apps, not just when characters limits exists.

For me it’s a disguised company-wide router used because nobody at Microsoft is responsible for URL schemes on official domains so nobody is confident that it’ll not break.

I don’t even think it’s a bad strategy tbf. But the domain is so awful and just looks like phishing if you don’t know MS is behind.

> My #1 issue with Windows 11 is not being able to un-group my taskbar items.

Weird because while I hate that also, mine is the opposite.

I hate not being able to group my start menu items.

I use it as a "second-tier" taskbar, for apps I use a lot but maybe not every day. But I don't like how it just throws them all in the same bucket now.

This is not issue for me at all, since I like grouping.

BUT,

I'm sad that they removed the option. It took me considerable time to come to a realization that different people like doing things differently and that's okay and there's not right or wrong way of doing it. The thing is, this realization came with personal, not professional growth. You can be a developer/designer for 30 years and still not understand why some people are unhappy with your decisions.

Someone in Microsoft's decision making chain who has enough weight has to acknowledge that removing an option that people have used for long time for just... for what exactly?... is alienating users.

Is it just me, or is that link only accessible on Windows?

It seems it wants to force open another application, perhaps only available on Windows..

Yes, it's trying to open Feedback Hub https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29954266

Indeed, sorry it does seem only show you the suggestion through opening the app. Annoying.

Here's a screenshot for the curious. What's ridiculous is that it says 0 comments when there are thousands.

https://imgur.com/a/xzX9J2d

Dont' worry, they "got it". Whatever that means.

Here's a public forum post about it full of complaints too.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-insider-progr...

Yup. In my book it makes zero sense to group by application. Grouping might make sense if it was per-usecase or manual, but that's really what virtual desktops are for. So grouping just feels useless to me.