You need to enable the enhance taskbar option in Start11 to go to a smaller taskbar since the update.  You also need Start11 1.41 or later.

I have Start 11 1.41.1. installed the windows udate and Did everything you said and taskbar still looks like this. Small nnot working.

auto hide is enabled

I installed Win 11 last week. It's good, I like most of it - but I hate to be intrusively forced to have the start bar at the bottom. It has been said many times and I can only repeat: we have wide screens nowadays, with much more horizontal than vertical space. Therefore I had the task bar placed at the left since Win 7 (as far as I remember), icons not grouped (only if task bar is full), and show the descriptions (I work a lot with SAP, and it is so useful to see the transcation name if you have 20+ SAP sessions open in several SAP systems ...).

I googled and somehow got it wrong ... I thought that Start11 has the option for free placement of the task bar - as this is the most important feature for me. An hour ago I purchased the multi-device (5-installations) license of Start11 (offer price 13.49 €) ... and found that the feature I actually want most is missing.

I don't complain, and it was my fault that I did not catch up better on Start11's features before the purchace. I still like the Win10-like start menu where I can arrange tiles as I want.

I hope that Stardock listens: Please, bring us the missing feature, and allow your customers to have a vertical task bar at the left side of the screen!

Peter

One more voice for side taskbar

Too bad! Using taskbar on left side since my first 16:9 screen as well (and using StartXX since Start8) - just installed StartAllBack, looks nice and has the features that I "need" / like (including taskbar on the left side).

Maybe I will buy Start11 again when vertical taskbar functionality is implemented.

Hello,

From what I know there is no news on this one. However, I have forward your question to Stardock Support Team for their input. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We appreciate your feedback and patience.

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Hello Sean, hello Stardock Product Lifecycle Management,

that's bad, really bad news.

I wonder why Stardock seems kind of "ignorant" against this feature wish. Look at this forum thread: there are many users who are waiting for the possibility to place the task bar vertically, at the left side of the screen. With good reasoning, as it has been discussed back and forth: today's widescreen monitors have plenty of space in horizontal direction (which is used by a vertical task bar).

Please let us know: how can we bring the 'vertical task bar' feature on the Stardock roadmap for Start11? What can we - the paying users - do to make this happen? Is there a voting list for potential new features?

Kind regards, Peter

I prefer a taskbar at the top of the screen, and it's a pain not being able to autohide it. I wouldn't mind trying a vertical taskbar now I've got a widescreen monitor too.

I'm really surprised at how tricky it seems to be to relocate the taskbar on the screen - as an ex-UI developer, I've coded position-independent display elements before. Any competent UI developer at Microsoft should easily be able to make a position-independent element like a taskbar - and if it needs to display app content, such as the widgets, there are a number of ways the app and the taskbar could arrange to display it appropriately. It smacks of poor and badly thought-out design, particularly as the Win 10 taskbar was more functional in this respect.

Moderator edited for full context

well, that was the historical purpose of creating the current Stardock software: answering specific niche needs. Theming with WindowBlinds is even more niche than having a side bar

Hello, Neil.

I made the mistake ordering Start11v2 today (multi-pack), but before installing I checked to see if the left vertical taskbar is implemented. I was sure it would be on a v2, but sadly, it's not. 

The way I, and I think many other widescreen users, would like, is to be able to position the entire taskbar on the left (or right), just like Windows 10 does it (see below). 

Thanks,

Kevin

I suspect the percentage using a vertical taskbar is somewhat smaller.

Unfortunately as we have noted before, the techniques used by that are simply not viable for commercial software.  It has been broken twice this year already and caused crashes I believe when it was broken.

The extra sales we might make using that method would cost us more in support costs and carry the continual threat of OS updates taking it away as an option leading to very angry customers.

It does however play nice with Start11 so you can use it to get the old taskbar if you wish and keep the Start11 menus.  Seems like a win win to me.