Stardock taskbar broken

Subject: Start11 Taskbar Control Blocked on Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9 (Windows 11 24H2)

Message:

Hello,

I’ve been troubleshooting an issue where Start11 always displays “Another program is managing your taskbar buttons” even after every known conflicting program was removed.

System information

• Device: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 9

• CPU: Intel i7-1185G7

• GPU: Integrated Iris Xe

• OS: Windows 11 Pro 24H2 (latest cumulative updates installed)

• Start11 version: current stable build from Stardock.com

• Account has full administrator rights

Steps already taken

1. Uninstalled Start11 completely through Control Panel.

2. Manually deleted all Stardock folders from:

C:\Program Files\Stardock

C:\ProgramData\Stardock

%LocalAppData%\Stardock

%AppData%\Stardock

3. Ran

sc delete "Stardock Start11"

to remove the background service.

4. Verified that no Stardock, Windhawk, ExplorerPatcher, StartAllBack, or TaskbarX processes or DLLs are loaded (tasklist /m).

5. Checked and reset registry keys:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell = explorer.exe

Removed ShellAppRuntime.exe entry.

6. Repaired system files with

sfc /scannow

dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

7. Restarted repeatedly between each step.

8. Installed Start11 again as Administrator on a clean system.

Result

The Start11 Taskbar page still shows the red message “Something else is managing your taskbar buttons.”

All other Start11 options (Start menu, clock, shortcuts) work correctly, so the shell itself is functional.

Request

Could you confirm whether this is a known compatibility issue with Windows 11 24H2 or Lenovo’s shell configuration?

Please advise if there’s a newer internal or beta build that resolves false taskbar-ownership detection.

Thank you for your help

Moved to Start Menu Products area