Start11 Opening Blank Office Application Windows

Start11 Opening Blank Office Application Windows

from Stardock Forums

Start11 has been pretty buggy for me.  Most of the bugs I can live with except for the fact that I randomly get extra application windows that are blank in Office apps.  For example, if I have Outlook open and switch to a different desktop (Ctrl+Win+Left/Right) extra windows mysteriously appear.  They will have familiar titles at the top such as a previously viewed Calendar entry or email, but the content of the window is completely blank.  It's easy enough to close these windows, but it's getting pretty annoying.  I removed Start11 and ran without it for a few days and never saw the problem.  Then reinstalled and the problem has returned.  Anyone else see this behavior?  If so have you found a way to prevent it?

office start11 blank windows start menu products
2,298 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Start11 shouldn't have any impact on what windows are visible so thats curious.

I don't believe we have had any similar reports in the past either.

Are you using the enhanced taskbar option in Start11 or the normal one?  If you turn off the enhanced taskbar does the problem go away (after a sign out / in)

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Hi Neil,

I'm not familiar with the enhanced taskbar option as I've not seen this in the options.  I'm using the Windows 10 style for the start menu and no textures or automatic color selection on the taskbar.  Please let me know how to check the enhanced option.

Chris 

Curtains - Customize Windows with additional styles
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. Enhance taskbar only appear for system on Windows 11. Windows 10 already have those "enhance taskbar" build in Windows 10 system.

As for your issue, please try purge and reinstall steps as mention here : [Link]. Just make sure to redownload the latest version from your account page. Reboot after the purge. Reinstall and reboot again after the installation. Retest and report back here.

Thank you,
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

I'm running Windows 10 so that's probably why I couldn't find the enhanced taskbar you'd mentioned.  I've run the script as administrator, rebooted, and the Object Desktop tool thinks Start11 is still installed and only provides the option of "Open" instead of "Install".  If I try to uninstall it, there is no entry in add/remove-programs to remove it.  I guess I'll try to go download Start11 separately, rather than through Object Desktop, and reinstall.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Ok, I've downloaded Start11 separately and registered with my Object Desktop key and it's running again.  I kept my settings considering I'd put quite a bit of time into customizing the Start Menu.  Hopefully this isn't a problem.  Will let it run for a day or two and see how we do and report back.

 

By the way, the Object Desktop  menu shows Start11 has installed but the configure button doesn't work anymore.  I suspect this is a product of installing Start11 separately?  Not a major deal for me as I don't ever use Object Desktop directly other than to install a program and it seems to only direct you to Windows Add/Remove programs for an uninstall.  But wanted you to be aware of the oddity.

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Well, that didn't take long.  I've done the cleanup, rebooted, reinstalled, and just as I started to get back to work I switch to a different virtual desktop using Ctrl+Win+RightArrow and get the following again.  Reminder that I'd uninstalled Start11 previously and ran without it for a few days to have this issue disappear.  Then I reinstalled it and the issue returned.  I was hopefully your cleanup script would do some magic but it doesn't appear to have helped.  I really want this tool to work as I really like the start menu and taskbar customization capabilities; they're great.  But between this issue and the fact that clicking on a running program in the task bar doesn't work sometimes until you click the Start11 start button and some of the other GUI issues such as the right-click menu hanging in the Start Menu, it's just taking up way too much of my time trying to figure out all the bugs.

I would also like to point out that this Windows 10 install was done this month.  So this is not an old Windows 10 install that's been upgraded from a prior Windows version or even a prior feature release.  It is the latest version and it was installed as the latest version.  I do use FancyZones, which is a feature in Microsoft PowerToys, to simplify my 49" super-ultra-wide and a couple of other 24" standard ratio monitors.  And PowerToys has also proven to be buggy.  I suspect these issues 'could' be associated with running both PowerToys and Start11 simultaneously.  At this point though, it's more important for me to have FancyZones than a fancy start menu.

I'm not going to ask for a refund but will instead remain hopeful these bugs will be squashed in the near future where I can try again.  Please let me know if there's anything I can try or anything I can do to help track these down.