You may want to try to reboot your pc, sometimes that fixes things like that. Or as an alternative, go back to the default win 11 theme, then try again the theme or skin that you want. Try one, or both solutions, and let's see if that fixes the issue!  

For starters, need to know your full Windows version number (use winver.exe). If you''re on an Insider build of Windows that might be the cause. Are you using any other third party software to customize your Windows GUI?

Usually, from what i have seen, this happens when OpenShell, Classic Shell or another similar app is running and taking control of the taskbar. Are you sure that's not the case here?

Thanks Jan. I'd not heard of OpenShell or Classic Shell, but I'm not sure if Windows PowerShell is doing anything to my taskbar. I've not long installed W11 over W10 and everything else seems to work fine.

Thanks LightStar. Curvity is very nice work of yours. The skin definitely hasn't been modified at all. I tried uninstalling Curtains, running CCleaner's registry cleaner (which has always worked well for me) and restarting Windows, but this is what I got again:

As you can see I've hidden my desktop icons with Fences 5 again, but I've still got the same problem with the taskbar. I even tried uninstalling WB11 as well, running CCleaner's registry cleaner, restarting Windows and making sure the default W11 theme was active in the personalisation settings, before restarting again and reinstalling WB11, etc. Alas I still have the same problem, many restarts later.

Oh and by the way, I also deleted Curvity and redownloaded it, but I still didn't get the desktop background with it.

Thanks for your help guys and sorry about this.

Thanks Jan. It's called Open Hardware Monitor and it monitors the temperature of my CPU and GPU. I tend to like to know if they're running too hot and like to make sure that the idling temperatures are suitably low, but it's not essential I suppose. I disabled it and this is what I still get after another restart (native UHD screenshot this time):

As you can see not only is the taskbar still wrong but even the background solid colour has reverted to the default black that I set in Windows personalisation settings. I had set WB11 to make the background copy the accent colour, but this setting keeps turning itself back off again after any restart. Not only that but Object Desktop itself refuses to startup with Windows and it keeps removing itself from the list of startup programs.

I did say that apart from all this I have no other problems with W11, but to be honest sometimes when I double-click on a program icon, the first time of asking it doesn't actually do anything, but if I simply try again it always seems to work fine, which is a bit weird I know. It hasn't been much of a problem, but maybe that's why Object Desktop for example isn't starting up with Windows, until I manually start it afterwards.

The best advice may well be to basically wipe my SSD and start all over again with a fresh installation of W11 and then Object Desktop, etc. but to be honest I've got so much installed on my PC, the vast majority of which runs very well, that I'm not sure I'm willing to do that yet. I don't regret upgrading to W11, because my PC seems to run cooler and faster than before somehow, but when it comes to Object Desktop it is actually not as good.

Thanks Jan. I did what you suggested and here's the screenshot:

In the meantime I'll ask on Microsoft Answers forum about why my PC is not always running programs at the first time of asking, but almost always the second time (when I double-click on a program icon).

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. As a tip for installing ObjectDesktop programs. Try download directly from download account. https://store.stardock.com/myaccount/products. Install only latest version. For example, if you see there are Start11v1 and Start11v2, please install Start11v2 only. Some application not compatible with Windows 11, please do not install those. Here a list for compatible application list: https://forums.stardock.com/505717/stardock-app-compatibility for reference. Also, important, to install one software at a time, reboot immediately after installation is important. Retest that one software, once there is no issue, move on to another software. Test and repeat.

Thank you.
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

Since you have Start11v2. Why not install that and see if the taskbar get skin properly this time.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Thanks basj. It seems to have worked. All I had to do was enable the setting for Start11v2 to enhance the taskbar and this is the result:

That was a good idea to suggest that and it's much appreciated.

Thanks LightStar. It wasn't just happening with Curvity. I was just hoping to get Curvity to display properly as it's a really nice style.

The problem I had before of my computer not responding to me trying to open a program for the first time, but responding the second time, has unfortunately returned though. It's definitely something Stardock that's doing it but it's more of a minor problem than it sounds and for another thread.

Cheers guys.

Great, glad to hear it was resolved.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant