Within some cycle the machine will answer you :
if the machine won't dry as usual you'll have the clue :)

"Shine shield" is just a glass protector against etching, not a rinse aid

Anyway stay away from all-in-one tabs, expecially if your water is extremly soft. The water softener in the tabs won't find any calcium to react with and will etch your glasses.

Tabs dissolve in the main wash so also the built-in rinse aid does. But rinse aid has to be used in the final rinse, not in the main wash ......

Check the miele manual, they too say it's better to use regular detergent, regular rinse aid and regular salt instead of 100-in-1 tabs

Go figure when 3-in-1 tabs first appeared on european markets, Bosch and Siemens manuals had a capital-letter warning : warranty didn't apply if 3in1 tabs were used

Depends on the model. I have an Optima which has a "tab" setting. For those washes it disables the rinse-aid dispenser. The Express quick-wash setting dispenses rinse aids -- tabs shouldn't be used for that but I use half (Miele) and it's been fine.

We use Miele Tabs (only a half each wash) and we also use Jet Dry baskets with Shine Guard. We were getting etching back when we used Cascade only.

Half a tab annaleef? Hmmm...I wonder if I should try that. I use the Ecover tabs and rinse aid, but use a whole tab. Everything comes out beautifully clean and dry, so I never considered changing. I imagine the symptom of lack of success in using half a tab would be dirty dishes?? I think I'll try it and see what happens.

My Miele, the Premier Plus Touchtronic sounds like a complete dinosaur next to Rococogurl's! And it's only four years old!

Very helpful. Thank you to all for your responses. I will go back to using the regular Cascade as well as the rinse aid. Is Cascade gel detergent ok? I recall reading on some previous threads that gel isn't so great with the Miele's.

Gel isn't so great with any DW - it can gum up the works - most manufacturer's recommend powder.

The main problem with gel is about the detergent cup rubber seal. This thing is *not* watertight, so the gel leaks out and when the cup opens it will be already empty.

That's not a big issue on the "express 105°F" or "light soil 120°F" that don't have a prewash, while you'll wash without detergent in those programmes with prewash (pots and pans 165°F , "automatic" and "automatic glass" with very soiled loads).

I wouldn't use gel.

Ok, so no gel and no all in one tabs. What "should" i use then? Are regular (not all in one) detergent tabs ok? I just don't love the regular powder detergents as they tend to develop clumps, etc.

In case of the "quick/half an hour" cycle just crush totally the tablet and put it on the *door*

No gel but all in one tabs are ok as long as the setting is on tab for a tab cycle.

What I do (and I checked with them, they said ok) is to change off the tab setting and just still use a half-tab when I use express. I use the Miele tabs which are crumbly anyway and they work just fine. I've got some rinse aid in there so if a load gets a double dose of that I figure what the heck. The dishes come out clean and dry. I'm a bit of a dw nerd but not 2 kinds of detergent crazy.

I get the Miele tabs from vacuum-express and almost never use a whole one so they go twice as far. I'm sure there's a more economical approach but 0 issues with anything since I switched to those and great results, so if it ain't broke....