July 21, 2021: A registry hack is now available that lets you ungroup icons on Windows 11’s taskbar, but it does come with a compromise or two. But check it out here if you really want to have the ‘never combine’ feature back: Ungroup icons on Windows 11 taskbar.

Windows, an OS known for its productivity and compatibility features more than aesthetics, took a very different turn in its evolution from Windows 10 to Windows 11. Rather unwelcoming, wanted one!

Many of us have grown up with Windows, and we have been grown to love its “Never combine” feature in taskbar settings that lets us keep the windows from an app ungrouped. It’s a major boost to productivity — as is easily one of those great features that you truly miss a lot when it is absent. A feature you long assumed will live with you forever.

But no, Microsoft doesn’t think so.

We were quite disappointed to see the feature absent in the leaked build, but secretly, we had hoped that this would change with any official release, be that the Dev Channel build that was released today. As it turns out, there is no option to ungroup the icons on the taskbar in the Dev build either. Worse, the tweaking software that worked wonderfully up to Windows 10 in letting you change taskbar setting to your will are not of any help anymore either.

We gave a very popular software utility called Taskbar Tweaker a run too, but both its stable and beta versions fell short. We do hope the support for Windows 11 is added soon in software like Taskbar Tweaker but for now, you can’t ungroup icons on Windows 11 taskbar by any method or trick.

And what a shame that is for an OS known to give its users plenty of features, mostly to build productivity.

The improvements in Windows 11 are quite exciting, so much that the OS finally feels like 2021, but until Microsoft allows us to use the taskbar — the centerpiece of everything you do on Windows — as we want, not only by ungrouping app icons but also being able to move the taskbar to the top, left and right sides of the monitor, it will be tough to fully appreciate the shine (literally!) Windows 11 comes flaunting with.

What are your thoughts about ungrouping icons on the taskbar on Windows, and its omission from Windows 11?

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> The article was updated to remove the guide about ungrouping the icons on Windows 11 taskbar using Taskbar Tweaker app as the software is not working on Windows 11 (at least for now, that is June 29, 2021). We are very sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused!