Phantom link in Start11 "Windows 10 style" start menu

from Stardock Forums

I'm seeing a phantom link to "Power Automate" in my Start11 start menu set to the Windows 10 style. The Power Automate app isn't installed on the PC. It appears that this is a phantom within Start11, as when I uninstalled Start11, this phantom didn't appear in the regular Win11 start menu, and after re-installing Start11, it's back. Also, within Start11, I switched to the Windows 7 style menu, and the phantom isn't there, and then switched back to Windows 10 style, and it's there again. However, switching to the Windows 11 style menu didn't remove the phantom.

Is there anything I can do to remove this phantom link in the Start11 start menu? Or alternatively, is there a way to regenerate the start menu, so that it refreshes to a clean state without the phantom?

start menu products
2,863 views 10 replies
Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Star11 1.2 or 1.2.1 ?

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,

Sorry to hear you are having issues.

Ok I see your issue now and can repro it .

Its a MS productivity app .

You can right click on it and a uninstall option comes up

to uninstall I did and it's gone .

I rebooted and it's still gone .

 


AzDude
Stardock Community Assistant

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Read reply #3

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting AzDude, reply 5

Read reply #3
End of AzDude's quote

I did read that. Thank you. But again, that was one of the first things I tried, and it didn't work.

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Note: This is an app that's not currently installed. When I click the phantom link, I get the error "Windows cannot find '|!Microsoft.PowerAutomateDesktop_8wekyb3d8bbwe!PAD.Console'. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again."

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

At this point, I'm thinking the only option I have is to uninstall Start11, obliterate its data, and reinstall. There doesn't seem to be a way to export settings, so I guess I'll have to write down what I've set and set it all up manually again.

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting SteveMagruder, reply 8

At this point, I'm thinking the only option I have is to uninstall Start11, obliterate its data, and reinstall. There doesn't seem to be a way to export settings, so I guess I'll have to write down what I've set and set it all up manually again.
End of SteveMagruder's quote

This didn't work either. At this point, I honestly don't know whether Windows 11 or Start11 is causing the issue. Even though Windows 11 without Start11 installed doesn't show the phantom link, I found some Windows cache files that referenced this (uninstalled) app. So something somewhere in Windows is supplying this phantom link to Start11 to display.

Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top

OK, I finally just figured out how to remove it.

I installed Power Automate from the Microsoft Store - this installed into the phantom link, which made the link now launch the app. So I then uninstalled the app. Then I rebooted. Now the link is gone altogether.

This surprised me as I had tried to install the desktop version of the app and that didn't help at an earlier point. The key is installing the Microsoft Store version.

Maybe this will assist others running into a problem like this.