I'm experiencing issues with leftover artifacts from Start11 after uninstalling it

from Stardock Forums

I'm in desperate need of help. I purchased Start11 and Fences and appreciate what both apps try to do in Windows 11, but they're breaking the UI to the point where I cannot use them. So, I've uninstalled both. The problem I'm encountering is that the UI is stuck in Start11 mode and I don't know how to full remove it. In other words, uninstalling Start11 did not revert the UI back to the native Windows 11 UI.

Here's a screenshot of my desktop with the issue: https://i.imgur.com/lebdcQ4.png

Notice the taskbar is black, the "Start" menu is to the left (it's also a strange icon), the text is black (I can't read anything).

Please help.

stardock software
1,620 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Did you perhaps previously install something to alter the taskbar like explorerpatcher or openshell?

The alignment is controlled by Windows and you can alter that in taskbar properties in Windows.  It would have been set to left based on you enabling settings in Start11.  Whilst Start11 does offer taskbar colour control, this requires Start11 to be running to do anything as it does not alter Windows settings.

I do not recall ever seeing that start button before which makes me think something else is involved (and maybe the cause of your issues before)

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

UPDATED: I found the problem!

SkinStudio 11 and WindowBlinds 11: https://i.imgur.com/daWbq1v.png

Specifically caused by WindowBlinds 11 (also functions as a service): https://i.imgur.com/2qUvEkn.png It was also responsible for this strange Start icon: https://i.imgur.com/ANsZZyS.png

The problem was that when I installed Start11 and Fences, these auxiliary apps were installed. However, when I uninstalled Start11 and Fences neither of these apps were uninstalled. That just made things confusing.

Everything is now back to the default Windows 11 UI: https://i.imgur.com/OL2qQXj.png and https://i.imgur.com/nITCVoO.png

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