WB11 does not draw taskbar correctly on my Win11 laptop

from Stardock Forums

I'm having an odd quirk on Windows 11 with WB11... 
The taskbar is being drawn too wide, and date/time are being clipped...
When I first installed WB11 on this machine, it was drawing just fine... but I wanted to turn off the date/time, since I display that info with a different program... so I tried a trick from an online article, where I set the date and time display to single-digit values, which supposedly make the display disappear... it *did* do that, but it also confused WB, and caused it to render the taskbar too wide, clipping off the right edge.

So I went back and set the date/time displays back to normal, but it didn't fix this issue; see the screen shot below.

The screen size on the laptop is 1920x1080, screen magnification is at 100%, as far as I know I haven't customized any display settings, except for installing WB11...

Does anyone have any idea what is causing this, and how to fix it?

I don't seem to have the "insert image" icon in this editor, so I uploaded version info to Flickr:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/derelllicht/52943590363

Here is a screen shot of the display, at this time:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/derelllicht/52942542847

 

windowblinds
9,925 views 14 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Uninstall WindowBlinds, reboot, then reinstall the latest WindowBlinds build.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Neil, reply 1

Uninstall WindowBlinds, reboot, then reinstall the latest WindowBlinds build.
End of Neil's quote

nae, that did not fix it... I completely re-installed after rebooting,
I now have Windowblinds 11.02 (017 x64 Windows 11 Edition)
dated 2023/03/22

but I still have this issue.

Galactic Civilizations III
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting basj, reply 3

Have you tried purge and reinstall step? As mentioned here: https://forums.stardock.com/486023/windowblinds-support-faq#reinstalling

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant
End of basj's quote


Okay, I tried this as well, being careful to include all the steps, but this issue still occurs...
*BUT* I've discovered an interesting quirk; all of the default skins work fine, rendering the taskbar properly!!
It is only the purchased skins which have this rendering issue... The skins that I have loaded and seen this rendering issue, are:

Celtic Warrior
Force 940
Sector 23
Steampunk Tech
Viking Warrior

Another interesting point is that each of the skins mentioned above, actually draws the taskbar slightly differently in width, meaning that the amount of the date/time stamp that are off-screen, varies slightly among them!!  I don't know if that is of use to you...



Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

Ahhh, interesting... so I downloaded another user-created skin (this one free), using the "Download more styles" option in WB11, and that one renders just fine also...

Okay, tomorrow I'll uninstall all of my user-created skins, and download them fresh from Wincustomize... then we'll see what happens;
The skins that I added in here, I had copied from my existing backup disks as .wba files; maybe there's something wrong with those files??
For now, though, I'm beat... I'll pick this up tomorrow.

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

I did a short test with Force 940 and I don't see your issue on my Windows 11 system.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Reply #7 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting basj, reply 6

I did a short test with Force 940 and I don't see your issue on my Windows 11 system.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant
End of basj's quote

Interesting... the only thing I see different, is that your menu is still center-aligned, while mine is left-aligned... don't know if that makes any difference or not...

Either way, it *is* happening on mine, as you can see in the previous images... what could be causing this??

Reply #8 from Stardock Forums Top

Maybe because of that clock/date addon look like it appear on the taskbar?

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Reply #9 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting basj, reply 8

Maybe because of that clock/date addon look like it appear on the taskbar?



Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant
End of basj's quote


Actually, I just realized that the issue is more fundamental than just the edge of the taskbar being clipped...
I just installed another skin called DeusNeoX, which changes the screen much more obviously... see attached image.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/derelllicht/52945328833

Note that the taskbar is not being converted to the new skin *at all* !!  That is still the default taskbar skin!!

Also note, Basj, that I moved the clock up to top of screen; that's a stand-alone utility called DS Clock, which isn't associated with the taskbar at all, that's just where I like to leave it...

Reply #10 from Stardock Forums Top

Do you have customizing software besides Stardock's software on your computer?

Reply #11 from Stardock Forums Top

I think, to test it always best to use those default skins that come with WB. From there, if it still appear, than, we know its not skin related. If it only appear on some skin, than it is most likely skin related. Try and see if the issue appear on skins like diamond, acrylic 7, corporate. Use those skin that come with white clear taskbar while you on dark mode. If the taskbar don't paint properly, you can easily see it dark taskbar instead a white/lite one.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Reply #12 from Stardock Forums Top


When I first installed WB11 on this machine, it was drawing just fine... but I wanted to turn off the date/time, since I display that info with a different program... so I tried a trick from an online article, where I set the date and time display to single-digit values, which supposedly make the display disappear... it *did* do that, but it also confused WB, and caused it to render the taskbar too wide, clipping off the right edge.
End of quote

Also, I wonder if, what your have done above has a permanent effect and only to resolve it is to do a Windows 11 fresh install.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Reply #13 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting basj, reply 11

I think, to test it always best to use those default skins that come with WB. From there, if it still appear, than, we know its not skin related. If it only appear on some skin, than it is most likely skin related. Try and see if the issue appear on skins like diamond, acrylic 7, corporate. Use those skin that come with white clear taskbar while you on dark mode. If the taskbar don't paint properly, you can easily see it dark taskbar instead a white/lite one.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant
End of basj's quote

Okay, to address several previous questions:

1. test with default skins: I just did that; the default skins *do* seem to work fine, including all the ones that you name above.
However, any user skin that I load, just leaves the previous taskbar in place... that also explains why the taskbar gets shifted off the right side of the screen - because the Start Menu button on those other skins is wider than the default button...

2. am I using any other configuration utilities besides WB?  The only other custom utility that I am (or was) using, is Open Start Menu, because Start11 lacks important features that I require in Windows. 

However: I uninstalled Open Start Menu (for testing these issues) and rebooted, and these issues are still present... so it does not involve that utility, and no, I'm not using any other customization software

2a. Does WB11 actually *require* Start11, in order to function properly?  That would be very unfortunate...

3. Reinstall Windows 11??  *NO*, I am not going to muck with a working laptop and OS in order to (possibly) fix a bug in WB11 !!

I *think* that addresses all pending questions?

Reply #14 from Stardock Forums Top

WHOA!!!!  PROBLEM FIXED !!!
Since I already have a license for Start11, I went ahead and installed/activated it...

It indeed solved all these problems, all themes installed and displayed properly...

However... I still require Open Start Menu (OSM), to make that menu usable; so I set Start11 to "not run at startup", then ran OSM again...

*and the WB11 themes are working fine now* !!

I then restarted the computer (booting to OSM), and everything continues to work properly...

... and I can see how Start11 solved this problem... it squeezes the width of the Start Menu icon/image down to the standard size, so that the rest of the taskbar fits properly... that means that this image doesn't look right on user skins, but everything else works; you can see this effect in the attached image...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/derelllicht/52945809953

This  doesn't explain *everything* that is going on, because the image on @Basj's image above is not squeezed, but it's what Start11 did on *my* machine to fix the issue...

so anyway this thread can be marked as resolved, I think... I'll wait a day or two, to see if anyone has any comments, caveats, etc, then I'll revise my original post to reflect that my issue is resolved.