Make win10 taskbar buttons `Never combine, hide labels`

win10-taskbar-never-combine-hide-labels.md

##Make win10 taskbar buttons Never combine, hide labels Normally, this option isn't available, and the valid options for how the taskbar button should behave are:

option	registry value	hide bit	combine bit
Never combine	2	0	0
Combine when taskbar is full	1	0	1
Always combine, hide labels	0	1	1

These options are set in Taskbar and Start Menu Properties, accessible by right clicking the taskbar and selecting Properties.

Changing the option will modify the registry keys HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced\ TaskbarGlomLevel and MMTaskbarGlomLevel, where the first controls the taskbar on your main screen, and the second on all other screens.

These registry values are later read and translated into a hide bit and combine bit by explorer.exe. The function responsible for that translation looks like this:

0x7FF69EA67590:
explorer.exe+57590 - 48 89 5C 24 08        - mov [rsp+08],rbx
explorer.exe+57595 - 57                    - push rdi
explorer.exe+57596 - 48 83 EC 20           - sub rsp,20
explorer.exe+5759A - 48 8B F9              - mov rdi,rcx
explorer.exe+5759D - 33 DB                 - xor ebx,ebx
explorer.exe+5759F - B9 56000040           - mov ecx,40000056
explorer.exe+575A4 - FF 15 7E011700        - call qword ptr [explorer.exe+1C7728]
explorer.exe+575AA - 85 C0                 - test eax,eax
explorer.exe+575AC - 75 32                 - jne explorer.exe+575E0
explorer.exe+575AE - 4C 8D 4C 24 38        - lea r9,[rsp+38]
explorer.exe+575B3 - 89 5C 24 38           - mov [rsp+38],ebx
explorer.exe+575B7 - 4C 8B C7              - mov r8,rdi
explorer.exe+575BA - 48 8D 15 3F671700     - lea rdx,[explorer.exe+1CDD00]
explorer.exe+575C1 - 48 C7 C1 01000080     - mov rcx,80000001
explorer.exe+575C8 - E8 5BDAFBFF           - call explorer.exe+15028
explorer.exe+575CD - 8B 44 24 38           - mov eax,[rsp+38]
explorer.exe+575D1 - 83 E8 01              - sub eax,01
explorer.exe+575D4 - 74 17                 - je explorer.exe+575ED
explorer.exe+575D6 - 83 F8 01              - cmp eax,01
explorer.exe+575D9 - 74 05                 - je explorer.exe+575E0
explorer.exe+575DB - BB 03000000           - mov ebx,00000003
explorer.exe+575E0 - 8B C3                 - mov eax,ebx
explorer.exe+575E2 - 48 8B 5C 24 30        - mov rbx,[rsp+30]
explorer.exe+575E7 - 48 83 C4 20           - add rsp,20
explorer.exe+575EB - 5F                    - pop rdi
explorer.exe+575EC - C3                    - ret 
explorer.exe+575ED - BB 01000000           - mov ebx,00000001
explorer.exe+575F2 - EB EC                 - jmp explorer.exe+575E0

Now, we'd like to "Never combine, hide labels", one way to achieve this is to modify the bits set by one of the existing options, which is what I've done. Changing the instruction

explorer.exe+575ED - BB 01000000           - mov ebx,00000001

to

explorer.exe+575ED - BB 02000000           - mov ebx,00000002

This replaces the option Combine when taskbar is full with the behavior we want.

However, I have yet to find a way to make the change permanent, and even when active, it's not very practical, since clicking on a taskbar button, even if not visually grouped, has the same effect as clicking a grouped one, i.e. open a dialog to let you choose which windows to activate.