Can't un-combine taskbar items in Windows 11 after latest update

I am limited in my ability to use experimental or preliminary builds or versions of Windows, as such matters are controlled by my organization's system administrator. I am mainly annoyed for the step backwards in user options and functionality and want to see this popular option restored asap in future updates. It sounds like that may be in the works, which is great news.

This is not correct. I just checked for updates, and there were none available. The option to "never combine" windows on the taskbar is still missing. Hopefully this helpful option gets restored soon.

I setup a new PC yesterday (11/20/23) with my first version of Windows 11, I was SO FRUSTRATED about the lack of 'never combine' taskbar buttons for work productivity purposes. I spent hours googling, trying suggestions from this site and even attempted a developer build just for this feature to be essentially unavailable for me.

I was downloading, setting up, configuring, etc the new PC and decided I would check on the Windows Update app to see it's status. I had at least a few long prompts during initial setup where the PC downloaded (and apparently installed) Windows Updates for new users. I checked the updates manually, I had 10 updates that were unable to be installed for whatever reason.

I manually initialized the Windows Update and then rebooted as instructed once all were completed. I went directly to my Taskbar Settings section and am ecstatic to say I now have the options to never combine taskbar buttons which included labels as well. Cannot express how happy I am being able to use my computer LIKE NORMAL. Asheron Bless

I am limited in my ability to use experimental or preliminary builds or versions of Windows, as such matters are controlled by my organization's system administrator. I am mainly annoyed for the step backwards in user options and functionality and want to see this popular option restored asap in future updates. It sounds like that may be in the works, which is great news.

I recommend mentioning features you want to see brought back in the feedback hub or on these forums. The experimental builds aren't all they are cracked up to be.

Features rolled out in experimental builds regularly come with a set of bugs and other issues. For example, with the same update that added this option it also removed the ability to check for updates in the settings. The only workaround is running a command in command prompt. This is why these features come to experimental builds first, so when they come to main builds, they don't launch broken. My point is your sysadmin has a good reason to keep you away from the insider builds, you'd spend a lot of time fixing all the issues that come with them. I don't believe the feature is mainstream yet, but it's gotten a lot of positive feedback so it most likely will be. I do agree that Windows 11 is a huge step back from 10 in terms of user options, it's been 2 years and they are still working on features that came with Windows 10 at launch.

Hate to say it, but I think I have one of those. I signed up for something months ago. I also saw a notice saying I could update the file explorer but it didn't seem to work. I've no idea really. Is it possible to roll back to a more stable public version of Windows 11?