Menu (instead of Link) options for Shortcuts in Start11 behave... strangely

Seems to be necessary to click on arrow, not word in menus?

from Stardock Forums

I have most of the items in the Shortcuts List in Start 11 (Windows 10 style) set to "Display as a menu". Here's how I would expect that to work, to be consistent with Windows standards, including folders in the Windows taskbar when that was an option before Windows 11, or folders in Edge browser Favorites in Windows 11: 

  1. After clicking on a folder (say, Documents) without releasing, while still holding the mouse button down I should be able to navigate the folders and release on the folder or item to open. 
  2. If I do click and release on the folder in Start, then either hovering over the name of a folder in the pop-up menu or clicking on it should open the next layer down in the tree (I should not need to click on the arrow specifically)

Start11's behavior is bizarre with folders shown as Menu instead of link doesn't seem to follow any Windows UI standards, or if it does, I can't figure out how it's supposed to work. It's also buggy and inconsistent and frequently crashes Start11. 

It seems like I need to click on the little arrow to the right of the folder to get it to open (although every once in a while, clicking on the folder name will also work), but sometimes even clicking on the arrow fails and it instead open the app below that on the Start menu, like the click goes through it to the item below it on the screen (as if the pop-up menu weren't there). In the screen capture below, I clicked on the Documents icon. The mouse is hovering over the Documents word at the time of the screen capture, but notice how no flyout for the next layer appears (sometimes it actually does do this on hover, but only VERY rarely). If I click on the word Documents, nothing happens. If I click on the little black arrow to the right of Documents, then SOMETIMES it opens, sometimes it instead opens Authenticator, which is the app below the Documents pop-up and obviously should not ever receive a click on Documents.

It really seems like Stardock offers the option for Menus without having ever tested them. All of the above issues are on my desktop. On my laptop, things were even worse, with Start11 typically crashing when I tried to use the menu over the link option. If I do set it to use links, those work as expected, but I almost always prefer to drill down through a menu than open a link to a folder, and then drill down through that (forces me to move my mouse over to the linked folder, perform the same navigation there, then I still have an extra window open that I'll need to close -- just a bunch of extra steps that waste time). 

Windows Version: 22000.1042

Start11 Version: Version 1.25

start menu products
6,430 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

I was recently advised to update to 1.27 over another issue (Start wouldn't always open on click, but would from Windows key on keyboard). After installing this update, the menu options on the Start11 Start menu work more consistently and open from clicking on the word (like "Documents" in the screen capture in my original post), not just clicking on the black arrow to the right of the word.

The behavior is still inconsistent if they open merely on hover (sometimes they do, sometimes the don't), but they seem to always open on click now, which is MUCH more usable now under 1.27 than it was under 1.25.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Nevermind, I spoke too soon. Should have tested it longer first. Back to frequently doing nothing when clicking. Still intermittently broken.

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Those menus are a stock OS system which was used by the original Windows 7 menu and for example overflow for toolbars when there is insufficient room.

The issue probably is it can take quite a while to build the submenus so it doesn't seem like they open instantly purely because they will build on demand.  If you have a huge number of files and folders it will be slow as names, icons etc have to be loaded up.  AV packages can really interfere with this process too.

Start11 is not involved in the submenus or clicking, it is all automatically handled by the OS itself, we simply provide it with a location to parse.

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Neil, reply 3

Those menus are a stock OS system which was used by the original Windows 7 menu and for example overflow for toolbars when there is insufficient room.

The issue probably is it can take quite a while to build the submenus so it doesn't seem like they open instantly purely because they will build on demand.  If you have a huge number of files and folders it will be slow as names, icons etc have to be loaded up.  AV packages can really interfere with this process too.

Start11 is not involved in the submenus or clicking, it is all automatically handled by the OS itself, we simply provide it with a location to parse.
End of Neil's quote

I hear you, but that doesn't track with the experience. It is definitely not a timing issue. No matter how long I wait, the experience doesn't change. I also have a hard time believing this based on my prior report, https://forums.stardock.com/509572/page/1/#3840191. This crashed Explorer every time I tried to open any of the menus. Then, Starkdock released an update that fixed this. So, if it's purely a passthrough from the OS, how could Stardock have fixed an Explorer crash with an update?

Stardock fixed the Explorer crashes that occurred when trying to open the Menu folders, but the the Menu function is still not working correctly.

If you are right and that really is a passthrough and not a bug in Start11, then that would mean that with Windows 11, MS has broken this function and Stardock should either remove the capability for changing Links to Menus (don't give us an option that doesn't work) or, preferably, change the OS API calls used to generate these to ones that can work in Windows 11. I have used the built-in Windows OS folder-flyout menus for years by adding those to the Taskbar, back to at least Windows 7 (XP and even 2000, if it had been an option back then, don't recall). They always worked flawlessly across dozens of computers and thousands of uses. This has been one of my most standard ways to drill down to a specific folder to access the files within. This process is no longer possible with Start11 in Windows 11. 

Right now, Stardock is shipping a broken function.

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Neil, reply 3

Those menus are a stock OS system which was used by the original Windows 7 menu and for example overflow for toolbars when there is insufficient room.

The issue probably is it can take quite a while to build the submenus so it doesn't seem like they open instantly purely because they will build on demand.  If you have a huge number of files and folders it will be slow as names, icons etc have to be loaded up.  AV packages can really interfere with this process too.

Start11 is not involved in the submenus or clicking, it is all automatically handled by the OS itself, we simply provide it with a location to parse.
End of Neil's quote

Further on my reasoning that this is not what's going on, when clicking does open the menu, it always happens immediately, so the pop-up on hover/mouse-over is clearly not a timing issue pending menu building in the background. 

Also, just to reiterate, even if I leave the mouse hovering for a minute or longer, when it's not working, the menu never appears on hover. Other times, it does appear nearly immediately. Timing is not a factor.

Perhaps MS changed the API calls for using these between Windows 7 and Windows 11. Given that there's an entirely new Start and Taskbar, missing many of the capabilities we have had for years (and the very reason I'm a new user to Stardock's products), this doesn't seem surprising that some related calls won't work any longer. Please have Starkdock investigate this and build its own, rather than relying on those provided by the OS, or perhaps seek out updated API calls, if MS is providing alternatives for Windows 11.