Tried Start11 Again...Still has bugs, quirks, and defects.

I like how Start11 looks, but it's more of a pain to deal with than the native Start menu

from Stardock Forums

While I really like the look of the Start11 menu, it’s simply too buggy and impacts performance too much to use. This is been the case every time I’ve tried to use Start11 again over several years and several computers (and I have had similar experiences with other Stardock software as well, but Start11 is the one I really wanted to work).

First there, are number of bugs which impact usability. From sometimes making the PC run more slowly, to crashing and restarting when I right-click in the start 11 menu, to hijacking key combos until I restart the computer. The interface still has annoying unpleasantries, like being unable to actually click on the start menu icons to open the previews unless you get weird behavior - you have to hover and wait for the icons to pop up. Showing the Start menu itself is often slow, so by the time you press the button again to see if it is working, Start11 opens and closes the menu immediately. It also doesn’t find many programs as well as the original Start. Win11’s native start menu will pullup “Internet Download Manager” if I search “IDM”. Start11 will not. And of course, the seemingly unpredictable crashing and restarting here as well.

(I know I'm probably going to get a response telling me to clean boot or reinstall or any other number of troubleshooting steps. As far as I'm concerned, Start11 is a mature enough product and the team has been at this long enough that they should be able to avoid these types of issues, at least enough to make it comparably usable to the Windows Start menu - or just admit that the nature of the Windows API means the software will have unavoidable conflicts or issues that require significant manual time and effort to get it to work if that's the case. That's more of a dev issue, not one the users should have to deal with.)

I really wanted to like and use Start11, but it’s repeatedly been disappointing, performed poorly, and this level of quality has been maintained across other Stardock products I’ve tried as well, and these have all occurred across several computers with plenty of system resources remaining. So I’m uninstalling for the last time.

 

start11 bugs user experience start menu products
2,649 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. Obviously there is something wrong with Start11 in your system. But, Start11 run fine on mine, and from other reports, most of the issue have to do with Microsoft introduce/change something new in Windows that causing conflict with Start11. That is something, I believe, can not be avoided 100%. As for your issues, I am sure, we are willing to work with you and try to help sort out those issue. However, we appreciate your reports.

Thanks
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Thank you for being honest about being unable to avoid the issues. The recent update seems to have fixed some of the instability, so perhaps I’ll try it for a little longer, but even today I’m having an issue where the start 11 search function decided it just doesn’t work. My PC is up to date, Start11 is up-to-date, it just feels like there’s always something going wrong with it. Probably the search will work once I restart, but then something else will probably break. (And not being able to click my taskbar icons to see the previews instantly is still highly irritating.)

If you have an idea to fix it that doesn’t involve diving deep into the depths of my computer, I’m willing to give it a shot.

Offworld Trading Company
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Foxsayy, reply 2

Start11 is up-to-date
End of Foxsayy's quote

Need to know which version specifically. And, please also provide us with your Windows 10 or 11 full version number.  Use Winver.exe.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Looks like it's starting to hang my PC again too recently.

 

Start11:

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

If you interested to dive deeper and see which of your installed 3rd party application is having conflict with Start11. Try Cleanboot https://forums.stardock.com/505872/start11-support-faq#cleanboot . Try that and report back.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant