Newly purchased email activation key for Start 11 deemed 'invalid'

from Stardock Forums

I just purchased a Start 11 product key, but when I enter it in the activation dialog it tells me it is not valid, but doesn't say why.

The story is that I'm setting up a new Surface Pro 9 running Windows 11 23H2. I have an Object Desktop sub, so I tried installing Start 11 V2. I set it with taskbar aligned 'Left, Top', which works well on my Dell XPS desktop.
 
However, with the Start 11 V2 'enhanced' taskbar option enabled, it started randomly(?) duplicating blank taskbar icons. When I disabled the enhanced taskbar feature and restarted Explorer, the whole desktop began to behave erratically, responding very slowly if at all, icons moving, apps flickering, the taskbar stopped responding, and I couldn't get into Settings from the keyboard, desktop, task manager, or command window. This repeated after rebooting again. Both keyboard & touchscreen ceased responding, so I eventually had to reboot into Windows Repair and revert to an earlier system restore point prior to installing Start 11 V2.
 
I then tried reinstalling Start 11 V2, but the same problem occurred, so I recovered the system, and decided to try the original Start 11. This works fine (although it still displays the duplicated blank taskbar icons when the 'enhanced' taskbar option is enabled) and seems stable. 
 
But when I tried to activate it, it said it couldn't use my Stardock account because another device was using the license, so I went onto the Stardock website and bought another. When I enter the activation code from the email, it says it's invalid.
 
I hope this explains the situation - can you help?
start 11 activation accounts and activation help
5,659 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. Lets try to solve the first problem first. The Activation issue. Use this guide to review activation and deactivate it. https://forums.stardock.com/486311/accounts-and-activation-support-faq#reviewactivations.

For the enhance taskbar issue. Please try purge and reinstall steps as mention here : [Link]. Just make sure to redownload the latest version from your account page. Reboot after the purge. Reinstall and reboot again after the installation. Retest and report back here.

Thank you,
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

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Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Thanks for those links - very useful, and they solved the problems. I had no idea where all those Object Dock licenses were in use -  some were allocated to long-dead PCs...

The Start 11 V2 taskbar is now stable on the Surface Pro 9, although I'm still getting duplicate taskbar items with blank white icons when the 'enhanced taskbar' option is enabled. This only happens on the Surface Pro 9, not the desktop PCs. I can live with these (currently only 2), but I'd prefer not to.

The only other (minor) issue is that, on all machines, when the taskbar is aligned 'top', the icon mouse-over labels for the pinned elements on the right-hand side of the taskbar pop-up on top of the icons, obscuring them and preventing them from being activated by mouse clicks. One has to click on the icon before the label pops up, which can be a pain. The icons to the left of the taskbar don't have this problem.

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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Meh - I just had exactly the same problem on the Dell XPS 8950 PC (running the same Start 11 V2 configuration under Windows 11). I've purged & uninstalled Start 11 V2, and I'll reinstall it without the enhanced taskbar option (for auto-hide) enabled.