Concerns

The service is used to start the software up on bootup.  It has no impact on performance and will sit there idle once you have logged in.

I am unsure what you mean by the taskbar will not go away after turning it off?  Could you explain more?

Also you have not mentioned the version of Windows you are using?

A picture of the search box you dislike would be most helpful.

In terms of customizing this depends on the OS you are using.

On Windows 10/11 we offer the texture options for the taskbar plus custom start button.  We also offer custom background options for the start menus.

On Windows 10 we support Stardock WindowBlinds and Stardock Curtains to customize the taskbar and startmenu.  On Windows 11 we will be supporting Stardock WindowBlinds once that is available for Windows 11. 

WIN11OperatingSystem

Quoting rom4ster, reply 2

Reduced 69%

Original 1202 x 920

If you want to disable that menu you would do it from the control what right clicking on the taskbar does option which is on the taskbar page you have open.

i want to disable start11 from doing  stuff with my taskbar, and its not turningitself off  even after  i told it to 

Quoting rom4ster, reply 5

i want to disable start11 from doing  stuff with my taskbar, and its not turningitself off  even after  i told it to 

The "Let Start11 enhance the taskbar" setting is not an on/off switch for Start11

then how do i let it work with the start menu, but make it KEEP ITS GRUBBY HANDS off of the taskbar then? Cuz the taskbar is unthemeable. I get wanting to nickel and dime and make me buy OTHER software to theme the other parts of the taskbar, but THOSE OTHER SOFTWARES ARE NOT FOR WIN 11 SO RIGHT NOW YOU JUST HAVE A BLACK BOX. I want to use your start menu because its pretty good but not at the cost of my themeable taskbar. For a company all about customization, you seem to love to force people to be "my way or the high way" , if you are going to be that way, then its highway for me, but really thats a shitty way to treat people who you KNOW hate being treated like that

Rom, you were banned from our Discord server for pushing past what was acceptable there - please don't let that happen here. 

As is known, the Start11 taskbar on Windows 11 was built from the ground up by us.  All attempts will be made to have it be as flexible as possible and accommodate what Windows users have become accustomed to with prior versions of Windows as well as including new features not seen anywhere.

That said, some new features may only be seen with other products we make - a new version of WindowBlinds that is the oven for example.  One reason for this is we need to be mindful of scope creep - it going beyond its core use case - for any particular product.

Thanks for the feedback.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

StartAllBack just rolls back parts of your Windows 11 device to Windows 10 so you can patch on Windows 10 themes. Start 11 / Windowblinds 11 is different because it will allow you to put on Windows 11 themes on your Windows 11 pc.

So you dont obey the laws of windows? I find it hard to believe that you dont have standard win32 elements in your app. I just want to know what they are, and thats the problem. Fun fact, startallback, does not "roll back" the taskbar but rather makes their own taskbar too. Explorer patcher does roll it back. StartAllBack bases their taskbar off of taskbars from windows 11 10 and 7. 

BUT regardless of any of this bullshit, my original question was why am I locked into the taskbar, just by having the program installed.


I get it, that you dont want customization of your taskbar because its all about you and no one else, but why do you force me to use it, and not give me ANY OPTION to remove it. You guys are just threatening bans and other bullshit but not once have you even acknowledged this problem or taken responsibility for it being an intended feature. 

THE BIG POINT: Let me make it clear, the taskbar turns on and will not turn off, at all and when I feel I am being treated poorly you guys start threatening me. StartAllback can turn the taskbar off no problem if I tell it to. So can every other program. 

Sure you can delete this post but there are other ways to share opinions so its up to you. Do you want to "shut me up" or do you want to acknowledge  THE BIG POINT and talk about it. 

What kind of skinning or themes are you able to do on a native Windows 11 taskbar that you are unable to do with Start 11 running?

I do know that you can get some of the older themes running by using explorerpatcher and start 11 together which are compatible. But I have not seen any way to get a custom theme to actually work on a Windows 11 taskbar

Out of pure curiosity, if StartAllBack is fulfilling all your needs, why are you still attracted to Start11 as an option? You are not trying to run them both at the same time, are you?  That would be unwise if so.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Product Lifecycle Manager

The standard Windows taskbar offers no native theming support.  It is largely Xaml based and not theme aware.

The installation of Start11 should not stop any native features of Windows 11 taskbar from working when it is not set to impact the taskbar.

Finally some good questions. Yeah so StartAllBack has a couple of issues. The taskbar has no problem (at least that start11 can solve), the issue is the start menu. StartAllBack while obviously themeable would be a lot of work to get looking how I want it. The Start menu in Start11 however is amazing, (except the stupid white search box/ results, cmon really guys? ). I want to use start11 for the start menu but use StartAllBack for the taskbar. 

Would you know where I can find such files? I would also love to change the default app color which seems to be where its pulling the taskbar render from. 

I think there is two differing philosophies between the two as well. StartAllBack is designed to be retro. It strictly focuses on bringing past items to Windows, i.e. windows 7 start menu and windows 10 taskbar, even it's themes are retro. Start 11 is more forward thinking. It is designed to take Windows 11's strengths into account while adding features for power users. Start 11's taskbar by default barrows parts of Windows 11's native taskbar while inserting a few new features. This means changes in Windows 11's design will carry over.

I think, maybe, what you are experiencing is the fact Start 11's taskbar is almost brand new. In fact, I am not sure it is even 100 percent finished yet. I am sure Neil is still taking request's of features people want added in.

As for theme's and skinning, I believe this only recently became possible thanks in part to 22h2's design changes. Windowblinds 11 is now in development and this will be Stardocks way of skinning Windows 11. I will also note, stardock has a different philosophy with skinning. i.e. keeping Windows 11 features in tact rather then retro fitting Windows 10 skins onto Windows 11. StartAllBack has also had a head start with skinning because their program is about the same as it was during the Windows 10 era. Start 11 on the other hand is brand new.

Once WindowBlinds 11 drops, and that will be soon, the whole custom skins landscape will change a great bit. I believe it will be worth the wait.

The taskbar in windows 11 is essentially the same as 10 minus stupid centering. (like why put the damn start menu in the center if you are just gonna move it further away , cheap attempt to imitate apple) at least from a design perspective. Windows 10 and Windows 11 actually have the same issue for me. See my issue with the taskbar is THAT IT DOES NOT GO BLACK, idiot losers at microshit STOPPED that from working, ON PURPOSE. Win 10 and Win 11. Idiots. 

The thing with the taskbar is... not to be too harsh but... I dont give a fuck. I give 0 shits about the "design philosophy" and whatever, its important that start11 has that sure and is great to the core idea of the program but... I DO NOT CARE. All that matters to me is my ability to theme. In that respect startAllBack is what I need because I CAN theme that, and CANT theme start11. "bu-bu-bu windowblinds is coming out..." you might say but I give 0 shits. Is it out? can I get it?  no? OH then I give no shits. I dont care for promises of the future or anything, I want something to solve my issues. 

The fact is, Start11 CHOSE this path, they CHOSE to work on their own proprietary mechanisms instead of being compatible with standard msstyles. So I have no sympathy for the "design philosophy" or "forward looking" as this is all on the Start 11 team for their choices. 


Windows skinning has been possible for windows 11 SINCE insider builds.  We dont need performance hogging software to do it for us, I patch my themeui and call it a day. 

At the end of the day my issue is simple, I Just want to turn the fucking taskbar off. Why is that such a hard request to even acknowledge.

No one is even talking about it, and its just gaslighting. My frustration is immense with this. Virus's behave this way, not legitimate programs, legitimate programs can be turned off. 

I do have a question though. If you are content with turning off Windows 11"s task bar, turning off the command bar in Windows 11's explorer and using Windows 10 themes on Windows 11. Then why are you not just using Windows 10 to begin with? Isn't that just about the same thing.

If you are content with turning Windows 11 into Windows 10 you can actually turn off Windows 11's taskbar with start 11. All you have to do is install explorerpatcher and then Start 11 will hook into that taskbar instead of the native windows 11 one. It works perfectly. You can actually get Windowblinds 10 to work on Windows 11 using this method and thus, have a skinnable taskbar working with Start 11 on Windows 11.

Any current method to skin Windows 11 are also is not recommended since it does require registry hacks that could be unsafe for your pc anyways. That is why Stardock does not endorse them.

And of course Windowblinds 11 is going to blow away all of the current methods in regards to themes on windows 11. Unfortunately, the price of having the best usually cost's the most amount of time.

YES YES YES good, this is the type of convo we should have had in the first place. 

So I specifically need start all back's taskbar, as i still need it to be black. Using both start11 and start is back (with taskbar enabled) will crash the taskbar. I still think its weird that I cant just tell start11 to leave the taskbar as is. 

Also the method for themeing windows 11 is LITERALLY the same as themeing windows 10.  Just patch themeui.dll and uxtheme.dll (as is tradition) and create/download your custom theme. No registry hacks involved, the registry hacks are for things like fixing the stupid right click menu. 

Now why am I not using windows 10? Well I am for the moment, but you see I am a gamer, and DirectStorage is gonna be best on windows 11 so eventually my main rig will need windows 11. I have a seperate pc that I am doing all this stuff on in preperation for the nightmare to come. *fear the day* 

Just for fun, have you tried putting StartAllBack's start menu on Start 11's taskbar. This should not work either. The reason for this is because for a start menu enhancement to work it needs to hook into something whether it is a windows taskbar or a home made task bar. I do not believe startallback is actually turning anything off in any different way then what Start 11 does.

With that said, it seems the two rivals have separate modes of theming and that is just how it works. For me, I have actually been disappointed early on that these theme patchers would chose to use startallback as their mode of getting theme's to work. I always thought using explorerpatcher was the much better option. This is because I believe that the Windows 7 start menu has already had its hay day and with the way pc's are progressing the Windows 10 / 11 styles really are the way of the future. I suppose these themepatcher's loss will be Stardocks gain.

All that thinking though was from an earlier time in Windows 11's development. I really do not believe the wait for Windowblinds 11 is going to be that much longer. I know that it has seemed like it has taken a while. But all sign's are starting to show real progress being made.

Yes startallback works with JUST its start menu. Meta stable at best but im putting that squarely on start11. 

These themes use startallback because its themable by choice. Startallback doesn't just restore windows 7, it can restore windows 10 and even a better windows 11. Its about *options* something that Start11 pretty much says "fuck you buy our non existant product" for. I mean the nerve of them to literally do that... its galling. 

Also while I get shilling for windowblinds. Its not it chief. From what I can tell windowblinds is an inbetween from something like rainmeter and true custom styling. I dont settle, I get what I want. 

You may wonder why I am so selfish about this but when you have had enough products thinking they know you better than you do, and basically have your values shunned out for fucking normies who cant even fucking tell what OS they are on, then you will see why I take all this so personally. The people who use tech and honestly benefiting most from tech no longer drive it, its driven by people who take apple at their word, who think the defaults are best, who never open up a config file. 

I warned you, rom... The 1st ban is 24 hours. The next is exile.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

You do realize that we are not on a Microsoft forum here correct?

Stardock is a company that has been implementing the changes people wanted that Microsoft would not do since Windows 8. This is why Start 8 was the very first start program.

Got a problem, then request a change. If it is a good request that most people would agree to then there is a good chance it will be implemented. This is the driving factor that start 11 even made their own taskbar. It was based on feedback from users.

Unfortunately, having start 11 work on top of startallback just doesn't make sense. They are competitors plain and simple.

"got a problem, request a change"

Thats exactly how apple works, and microsoft. 

Real products can be CHANGED BY ME. How does a company who seems SO MUCH about customization not understand this. 

But want a damn request, heres one. Make it so I CAN DISABLE the taskbar. IM not asking for compatibility with startallback. I JUST want to have control over my system.


Again, I can turn off the taskbar in startallback, and just have the normal win 11 taskbar, and still ahve the startallback start menu. 



THIS comapny just PISSES me off. THE FACT THAT THEY DO NOT, EVEN AFTER ALL THIS PESTERING AND DISCOURSE, ACKNOWLEDGE THIS IS AN ISSUE. NO ONE HAS COME OUT AND SAID THIS IS AN INTENDED FEATURE, NOR HAS ANOYONE SAID ITS A BUG. 

THEY JUST IGNORE ME.


Also disabling your competitors software is just plain rude and unethical. Office does not disable google docs. Ea games do not disable activision games. We developers are not here to turn our user's computer into a god damn battlefield. We build our apps so users can enjoy them and build features that keep the user hooked in. Not punish the user for not using them. Let me just put it this way, what if I LIKE the windows 11 taskbar, JUUST THE WAY IT IS, but want to use Start11 for the start menu? HMMM WHAT THEN, WHAT THEN YOU TYRANTS? YOU gonna make me use the taskbar? Just cuz some peopple wanted a taskbar does not mean it should be required for all users. Just pisses me off that you would think that. 

You guys are a company who is for customization, why are you so opposed to acting in the USERS best interest. Why are you acting like the companies that caused this problem. Something has to have made you guys want to do this, some anger deep down at microbad.  YOu were probably angry that descisions were made against your interest as users. Well I am angry about the same.  This is just horrible.