Windows 11 Taskbar Never Combine

Soldato
Joined
9 Dec 2006
Posts
9,230
Location
@ManCave
It is basically the same as 10 with a few small tweaks/additions to give you a little more information on what it is doing. It is totally inadequate if you actually use your PC for a wide range of tasks and don't just live a 9-5 + weekend existence with the system left on idle overnight.
not to sure I follow,

I too don't follow that, what is it that you would need to be better?
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
90,819
not to sure I follow,

I too don't follow that, what is it that you would need to be better?

You'd probably have to shadow my usage to really make sense of it.

For instance amongst other things I have a system dedicated to a City of Heroes server I boot up about once a week or so to play a bit - trying to use 10 on there was just facepalm worthy.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
9 Dec 2006
Posts
9,230
Location
@ManCave
You'd probably have to shadow my usage to really make sense of it.

For instance amongst other things I have a system dedicated to a City of Heroes server I boot up about once a week or so to play a bit - trying to use 10 on there was just facepalm worthy.

ah I see at work I've set up group policies to do all updates on Friday at 03:00 reboot then restart all services backup Automatically were it left off.

its a shame you can schedule updates on day At time then server boots up updates & shutdowns you could do this with multiple services tagged together but not from 1.,. :(
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
90,819
ah I see at work I've set up group policies to do all updates on Friday at 03:00 reboot then restart all services backup Automatically were it left off.

its a shame you can schedule updates on day At time then server boots up updates & shutdowns you could do this with multiple services tagged together but not from 1.,. :(

Problem is I do a lot of stuff over a lot of machines - one way or another you run into the limits of the ability to defer or pause updates sooner or later and then it becomes frustrating. With my 7 systems while not ideal I tried to do security updates as soon as they became available (semi-automatic) and put off all other updates until I had time (fully manual) i.e. with the system I use for COH I would do feature updates after I've finished using it when it doesn't matter if it gets tied up or busy for awhile and less disruptive if an update fails and I have to spend time manually sorting it out. Problem is the automatic updates system in 10/11 and the features like active hours lack real world context awareness despite being real world executive and just end up being disruptive and irritating if you actually use your system for a broad spread of tasks and use multiple systems.

Far too often with 10 I end up using time I should be unwinding/relaxing sorting out updates issues or my use disrupted by updates or related tasks and after awhile that is just **** Microsoft.
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Dec 2006
Posts
9,230
Location
@ManCave
Problem is I do a lot of stuff over a lot of machines - one way or another you run into the limits of the ability to defer or pause updates sooner or later and then it becomes frustrating. With my 7 systems while not ideal I tried to do security updates as soon as they became available (semi-automatic) and put off all other updates until I had time (fully manual) i.e. with the system I use for COH I would do feature updates after I've finished using it when it doesn't matter if it gets tied up or busy for awhile and less disruptive if an update fails and I have to spend time manually sorting it out. Problem is the automatic updates system in 10/11 and the features like active hours lack real world context awareness despite being real world executive and just end up being disruptive and irritating if you actually use your system for a broad spread of tasks and use multiple systems.

Far too often with 10 I end up using time I should be unwinding/relaxing sorting out updates issues or my use disrupted by updates or related tasks and after awhile that is just **** Microsoft.

With windows 10 maybe, but you can fix all this with group policy, done this on hundreds of boxes at work


with Windows 11 it gives you all the options to restart immediately or postpone can be done by group policy not too sure what the problem is now. unless you dont want to use group policy


zldK6gs.png

so at work I often set Option 4, pick Sunday at say 04:00am & then never have to look at update ever again
then you can use "turn off auto-restart updates during active hours" on top if you want

then if you want to go step further to be fully automatic
set bios alarm to power on at sunday 03:40am
then set windows task scheduler to turn off at 6:00am

above automates all of your server weekly startup requirements
 
Last edited:
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
90,819
With windows 10 maybe, but you can fix all this with group policy, done this on hundreds of boxes at work


with Windows 11 it gives you all the options to restart immediately or postpone can be done by group policy not too sure what the problem is now. unless you dont want to use group policy


zldK6gs.png

so at work I often set Option 4, pick Sunday at say 04:00am & then never have to look at update ever again
then you can use "turn off auto-restart updates during active hours" on top if you want

then if you want to go step further to be fully automatic
set bios alarm to power on at sunday 03:40am
then set windows task scheduler to turn off at 6:00am

above automates all of your server weekly startup requirements

Often postpone options just result in dodging the issue at one point then running into it, sometimes worse, another time, same with active hours - I might be using a system at 4am one day and 4pm another, sometimes not using a system for weeks on end other times using it frequently for clustered bursts of days of varying hours.

I've tried all these options - it may only make more sense from shadowing my usage.

Then there is the problem that even group policies aren't a 100% control over Windows 10/11 behaviour.
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Dec 2006
Posts
9,230
Location
@ManCave
Group policies are 100% control over windows and have been for years, as an ex mcp and user of windows server since 2000s. Everything on group policy works as expected. Its just finding what you need and ensuring policies don't collide
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
90,819
Group policies are 100% control over windows and have been for years, as an ex mcp and user of windows server since 2000s. Everything on group policy works as expected. Its just finding what you need and ensuring policies don't collide

There have been several instances where group policies have been ignored with updates and/or broken post an update by MS (think this was one of the instances where it was ignoring GPO settings but it was awhile back https://www.ghacks.net/2018/03/08/r...ion-1709-upgrades-that-bypass-windows-update/ ). I posted a couple of instances in the Windows 10 thread in the last few years but I can't find them from a quick search.

A Google search shows loads of people with issues related to Windows ignoring GPO settings, some of them may have things misconfigured but some certainly don't.
 
Soldato
Joined
9 Dec 2006
Posts
9,230
Location
@ManCave
There have been several instances where group policies have been ignored with updates and/or broken post an update by MS (think this was one of the instances where it was ignoring GPO settings but it was awhile back https://www.ghacks.net/2018/03/08/r...ion-1709-upgrades-that-bypass-windows-update/ ). I posted a couple of instances in the Windows 10 thread in the last few years but I can't find them from a quick search.

A Google search shows loads of people with issues related to Windows ignoring GPO settings, some of them may have things misconfigured but some certainly don't.

sure there always will be odd instances where GPO settings fail due to bugs, or Updates breaking GPO
same on linux with PAM or sshd issues do happen

but Policies configured correctly will work do control 100% of what windows will do. no more or less so than a UI option.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
24 Jun 2021
Posts
3,604
Location
UK
Has anyone heard anything about Microsoft's intentions to bring back or not bring back "never combine"?
I thought they'd at least say "yeah we've heard you and will fix it" by now.
 
Soldato
Joined
17 Jul 2008
Posts
7,367
So was proper control over updates...

That makes my blood boil.. I'd love to have face to face discussion about this with the devs..

Id have two hammers made, one with "cancel" stamped on it on it the other with "disable" and I'd beat the devs with those hammers..
 
Back
Top Bottom