Windows 11’s taskbar removed several customization options present in Windows 10, which frustrated a lot of power users — but there’s still more control available than the default Settings panel exposes.
Settings-Level Customization
Settings > Personalization > Taskbar - Taskbar items (search, widgets, task view) - Taskbar behaviors (alignment: left or center, combine taskbar buttons)
What’s Genuinely Missing Without Third-Party Tools
- Moving the taskbar to the top or sides of the screen (removed entirely in 11, present in 10)
- Showing seconds in the clock without a registry edit
- Ungrouped taskbar buttons with labels, natively
# Registry tweak to show seconds in the system tray clock New-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced" ` -Name "ShowSecondsInSystemClock" -Value 1 -PropertyType DWord -Force # Restart explorer.exe or sign out/in for it to take effect
For genuinely deeper customization (moving the taskbar position, restoring old-style behavior), a third-party tool like ExplorerPatcher remains the only real option — Microsoft has shown no sign of restoring these controls natively.