Image: Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
No, Windows 11 still isn’t able to move your taskbar around. But Microsoft is testing another feature users want: The ability to ungroup and badge your apps and windows on the taskbar.
We’d like to say that Microsoft’s Windows 11 Insider preview build 23466 for the Dev Channel includes some the nifty new Windows features that Microsoft announced this week, including RGB lighting controls, improved Widgets, and so on. It doesn’t. Instead, there’s even more — but the Taskbar update is there, thankfully, as is the new PC migration / restore feature. (Sorry, the upcoming Windows Copilot AI-powered tool will debut in June.)
Essentially, Microsoft is making Windows 11 more like Windows 10 through the ungrouped badging option (called “never combined mode”) on the Taskbar. Let’s face it: Windows 11 shows a tiny little progress bar-like icon on Windows 11 to indicate how many windows or instances of a given application are available, and it’s impossible to parse. Badging and ungrouping the windows, like so, solves this problem. (So does Explorer Patcher, a fantastic free program that restores many missing Windows 11 features.)
“Never combined” mode was one of the most requested features, Microsoft said, probably for good reason.
Meet Windows Backup
Microsoft is also launching a new Windows Backup app, taking the migration process that Microsoft detailed earlier and making it a formal application. Windows Backup is designed to not only store your apps and data in the cloud, but also preserve the layout for migrating all of your data to a new PC. Files, folders, apps, and credentials will all be stored in the cloud, tied to your Microsoft account. (If you want to test this out, Microsoft recommends that you either set up a new build on a second PC or use a virtual machine.) It is not a replacement for traditional backup software.
Microsoft also detailed numerous tweaks and changes in its blog post, some of which we’ve included here:
- Voice access text authoring: You can now say “correct that” or “spell that” or “click that” to guide your voice interactions with your PC.
- Turn off specific notifications: If you typically ignore notifications from an app, Windows will detect that and offer to turn them off entirely.
- Start menu reorganization: “We are trying out a different model for ranking the most recently used files in the Start menu’s Recommended section that considers when the file was last used, the file extension, and more,” Microsoft said. “This means you may not see files purely in reverse chronological order of when they were last used.”
- View your Wi-Fi password: Forgotten your Wi-Fi password? You can now see it in the Settings menu.
Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor
As PCWorld’s senior editor, Mark focuses on Microsoft news and chip technology, among other beats. He has formerly written for PCMag, BYTE, Slashdot, eWEEK, and ReadWrite.