New Windows 11 taskbar setting reduces battery life, here's how to fix it

A new report shows how enabling seconds on the Windows 11 system clock can worsen the battery life of your PC or laptop. To recap, Microsoft released the much-awaited Windows 11 Moment 3 update last week. The recently rolled-out update is teeming with major improvements and awe-inspiring features.

However, the most notable addition is the release of a new feature that lets users add seconds on the clock in the system tray. Now, the American technology corporation has warned that enabling the aforesaid feature will harm battery life.

A test conducted by Neowin shows that enabling seconds on the system tray clock increased the power consumption of a laptop by a whopping 19 per cent. While this doesn't seem like a lot, it adds up over time. For instance, if you use your laptop for about eight hours a day, with the seconds on the clock enabled, you will see a difference of 16 minutes in battery life.

Regretablly, it is still unclear why enabling seconds on the system tray clock reduces the battery life. The folks at GizChina suggest that the higher power consumption could be due to the fact that the Windows 11 OS has to continually update the display of the system tray clock. This can excessively exert the CPU and GPU, leading to more power consumption.

So, those who are concerned about battery life can disable the display of seconds on the system tray clock. To do this, you can simply head to the Settings app, then go to System, and then tap Clock & Language. Next, tap Date & Time and uncheck the box next to "Show seconds." Aside from this, there is a slew of other factors that affect battery life. These include:

• The display's brightness
• Number of open apps
• Whether you are downloading or uploading a file
• Whether you are watching a video online
• The number of processes running in the background
• The hardware of your PC / laptop

However, you can increase the battery life of your system by following these tips:

• Update the drivers of your PC regularly
• Disable unwanted background processes
• Only open applications that you are using
• Do not increase the brightness of your display

Still, if you want to enable seconds for the system clock in Windows 11, follow these steps:

• Go to the Settings app > Personalization > Taskbar
• After expanding the Taskbar behavior section, place a checkmark next to the option that says, "Show seconds in system tray clock."

Windows 11 gets never combine taskbar buttons mode

Now, Microsoft has been sparing no effort to improve widely popular versions of its operating system. In line with this, the company recently rolled out new updates to the Windows 10 OS as well. Earlier this month, the company released a Windows 11 dev build that adds a much-awaited feature dubbed "never combined mode."

As the name suggests, the feature allows users to display all windows as individual items in the taskbar. The update is rolling out to the rebooted Dev Channel with the Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 23466. In a blog post, Microsoft's Amanda Langowski and Brandon LeBlanc said the company is excited to release an early version of one of the "most requested features" for Windows 11 OS.

Notably, the never combined mode will let users see each window of their apps and their corresponding labels separately. However, the company says the feature is still in the early development stage. It is worth noting that Microsoft is only rolling out the feature to Windows Insiders in the Dev Channel at the moment.

So, it is safe to say that the feature is not likely to reach all enrolled devices anytime soon. However, when the feature is available, you can enable it by going to the Settings app, then Personalisation, and heading to the Taskbar section. Here, click on Taskbar behaviors and settings and set the Combine taskbar buttons and hide labels option to "Never."