I had to rollback simply because after a while, it felt slow and hard to manage multiple windows...
Who knew people like to run the same app more than once :|
I sympathize with people that feel like this makes a big difference in productivity but you would have to be swapping between windows an absurd amount of times in a day for this to make an actual difference in productivity.
It takes (rough estimate) about an extra 200ms to hover the task bar icon and select the window you want.
So you lose a minute of time for every 300 times you do it. Doesn't add up to much unless you are switching windows hundreds or thousands of times a day.
Not to mention the fact that selecting icons from your taskbar isn't even the most efficient way of switching windows, which would be win+number or alt+tab.
Glad you don't need it, but perhaps don't tell others they don't.
Why not? I am not contesting that people like the feature, just contesting that it makes you measurably more productive.
I like how I can move the text cursor around on my iPhone by holding the spacebar down but if they removed that feature I am not going to be measurably less productive.
Not sure that's true in the setup under discussion: win+# requires figuring out which number to press - and if the count is wrong, I mind even end up on an entirely different desktop via some apps I keep pinned on the taskbar. And at the very least subjectively, alt-tab feels rather jarring and requires some mental re-adjustment before I find the proper window to click.
For pinned stuff you eventually remember the number for each app and switch quickly.
And now.. "taskbar overflow!" Even more hidden context to trip my users up and generate support calls. Thanks!
It's completely useless and so frustrating. Sadly it's impossible to get rid of.
First, would you really want that? and second, why do you have so many windows open, that this is becoming a problem? if you hide search, I think you can get about 8 non-collapsed windows. do you really need more than that?
But then I'm probably the ultimate outlier: I have my Win10 taskbar configured Win95 style -- showing the full window title and one tab per window. I do not know why the "dock" style of desktop window navigation is so popular.
My taskbar fits 28 windows before scrolling happens. It gets a bit unwieldy after the first 12, and eventually, titles will no longer be displayed.
do you really need more than that?
Yes.
> First, would you really want that? Yep. I was forced to buy StartAllBack, just to be able to use "Never Combine" in Windows 11
> and second, why do you have so many windows open, that this is becoming a problem? if you hide search, I think you can get about 8 non-collapsed windows. do you really need more than that?
Because people have different ways of working. I have 32 gb RAM in my laptop and at any time I have dozens of windows open. I have dozens of browser tabs open at the same time as well. When I am at work, I open each mail that I want to look at later, in a window by double clicking it in Outlook. And then later on, resolving each one by one.
Why don't you give the OP some respect and don't assume they don't know what they want?
Ran out already before even getting to File Locator Pro and File Explorer! - and this is the stuff I know I'll almost certainly be having open pretty much every day. I'll be running additional programs on top of these.
I usually have more than 1 command prompt, and more than 1 Firefox window.
Additionally, Visual Studio isn't decorative. I will actually be using it to work on a program of some kind. And when I run that program under the debugger, the program will need space in the task bar for its icon too.
For me anything other than "Never combine" is an anti-pattern. Every application instance should have its own taskbar button that I can identify by looking at it.
>> if you hide search, I think you can get about 8 non-collapsed windows. do you really need more than that?
I have a huge ultra-wide monitor. I can easily get 20+ non-collapsed window buttons on the taskbar. Combined taskbar window buttons waste my time and impair my productivity.
That's why I prefaced it with 'for me'.
Other people can use works best for them. I know what works best for me.
So I think in my comment above I mostly just automatically omitted the "for me" when reading your original remark.
I agree.
svnpenn's comment characterized "Never combine" as an anti-pattern, but it is my preferred configuration.
Perhaps it would have been more accurate to just say that "Never combine" is not an anti-pattern since many users prefer it for various reasons.
I prefer "Never combine" so that I don't have to spend any time hovering and waiting.