How do I "ungroup" (or whatever it's called) PDFs on Win11 taskbar?

Report · Feb 26, 2024

Win 11 is such a pain. Hard to believe it's been out for several years. My latest quest it to figure out how to make my PDF icons ungrouped on the Win11 taskbar. I've got them so they show separatel on the taskbar, which helps. But all the PDFs are stuck grouped together. I cannot put a file of somethig link Excel between two PDFs. I can drag one of the PDFs to another screen, but when I do that, Win 11 shows get two identical PDF icons on the second screens taskbar, which I can only get rid of by dragging the PDF back to the first screen (where it is immediately "grouped" with all the other PDF's).

Is it possible to have Win 11's taskbar show a PDF, then a Excel file, then another PDF and so on? Or am I stuck with all the similar files displayed as a block?

I'm going to post this on the Micorsoft hub too, though I imagine their response will be to hack my registry (seems to be their answer for everything).

Report · Feb 26, 2024

Did you try this? https://www.howtogeek.com/ungroup-taskbar-icons-windows-11/

Report · Feb 27, 2024

Yes, I already did that. After which, AD or Windows (I can't tell which) no longer groups/stacks/combines all PDF's into a single icon on Win 11's taskbar. I thought I had finally fixed a Win11 problem w/out hacking the registry, but then found if I moved a PDF from one screen to another, the new screen shows two PDF icons. Honestly, Windows 8 got such a bad rep, but 11 is so much worse it's unbelievable. 11 is actually worse than that steaming pile of X Windows Millenium edition was (which I didn't think was possible).