Stardock Start11

lafargeotte · Oct 26, 2023

antspants said:
Are they making people who paid for start 11, pay again?

Yes, unless you bought it very recently.
https://support.stardock.com/space/SHC/1600028701/Start11+v2.0+Upgrade+FAQ

antspants · Oct 26, 2023

Time to move over to StartAllBack. I dont reward companies who scam customers. I have 12 active Stardock licenses. I’m not paying again.

Kees · Oct 26, 2023

This is ridiculous!
In May 2023 I bought a 5 pack licence for Start11.

So I too decided to go back to StartAllBack.

(The other text I deleted because of privacy reasons)

Kees · Oct 26, 2023

Deinstalled Start11 and installed StartAllBack.
All OK now...

antspants · Oct 26, 2023

Kees said:
This is ridiculous!
In May 2023 I bought a 5 pack licence for Start11.

So I too decided to go back to StartAllBack.

(The other text I deleted because of privacy reasons)

Tell them.

Stardock Announces Start11 v2

New Start Menu Designs, Taskbar Enhancements and Enterprise Features Now in Release Preview

forums.stardock.com

This company went to

a coupler of years ago. There support works like this: If it doesn’t happen for them, it isn’t an issue/problem. They've actually said tis to me in forum a few times. “It doesn’t happen for me” end of discussion.

Stigg · Oct 26, 2023

antspants said:
Are they making people who paid for start 11, pay again?

Yes, you have to pay again.
The old version 2 trick. :eyeroll:

jvickers · Oct 27, 2023

Wolfzz said:
Start11 v2 is now available

The industry’s most advanced Start menu just got better.

The industry’s most advanced Start menu just got better.

www.stardock.com

I like the version I have perfectly fine now. Unless something earth-shattering has changed, I think I'll stay with he version I have. Thanks for sharing, though.

pparks1 · Oct 27, 2023

Stardock unfortunately has a product naming issue that makes this look really bad. Their product is called Start 11. But in this case, the 11 has nothing do with the Start application, but rather with Windows 11.

I'm not seeing much difference here between say Macrium 7 and Macrium 8. Or Office 2019 and Office 2021. Both products here would be expected paid upgrades between versions. Why wouldn't the Stardock application be the same? It's effectively Start 1 and Start 2.

But having 11 in the name makes it look like they are charging for minor upgrades rather than major upgrades.

antspants · Oct 27, 2023

pparks1 said:
Stardock unfortunately has a product naming issue that makes this look really bad. Their product is called Start 11. But in this case, the 11 has nothing do with the Start application, but rather with Windows 11.

I'm not seeing much difference here between say Macrium 7 and Macrium 8. Or Office 2019 and Office 2021. Both products here would be expected paid upgrades between versions. Why wouldn't the Stardock application be the same? It's effectively Start 1 and Start 2.

But having 11 in the name makes it look like they are charging for minor upgrades rather than major upgrades.

I bought I think it was six start 11 licences this year alone, all the way up to August. They can spin it anyway the like. It changes nothing. It isn’t all just about the money either.

Kees · Oct 27, 2023

antspants said:
Tell them.

I did, but they did not bother. The only thing I was told that Verson 1 is still usable on 23H2. How it will continue and if you get support after that was not mentioned. I think the licence will discontinue after that.

But I don't bother either, because I yesterday switched back to StartAllBack (SAB), which I used with a triple licence until May 2023. In those days I noted some errors in the StartAllBack software, which made it unusable for me at that time (very big characters in title bars on every window). But in the meantime they seem to have solved those problems.

And because I saved the registry entries of SAB, and put those back before reinstalling the program, I had my licence back and almost all settings!

If maybe in future StartAllBack would get unusable because MS makes it impossible to make changes to the task bar or anything else, I will see again.

BTW. Originally I posted a link to a comment that I posted at the Stardock forum and some extra text, but I deleted it as I was quick enough to do so..

pparks1 · Oct 27, 2023

antspants said:
I bought I think it was six start 11 licences this year alone, all the way up to August. They can spin it anyway the like. It changes nothing. It isn’t all just about the money either.

But it's the same thing with any software vendor, really. New versions of software come out all of the time, you aren't obligated to buy it. Previous versions typically continue to work.

If you bought after Oct 1st, you get a free upgrade. If you bought prior to that date, then you are eligible to "upgrade" and I assume the upgrade cost is less than the purchase price if you were just buying outright.

I mean I understand your frustration. But if you bought 3 copies of Microsoft Office 2019 prior to the release of Microsoft Office 2022, I don't expect Microsoft to just fork over copies of the new version. If you bought a copy of a video game, and 2 months later a sequel was released, I'd expect you to have to pay again.

antspants · Oct 27, 2023

pparks1 said:
But it's the same thing with any software vendor, really. New versions of software come out all of the time, you aren't obligated to buy it. Previous versions typically continue to work.

If you bought after Oct 1st, you get a free upgrade. If you bought prior to that date, then you are eligible to "upgrade" and I assume the upgrade cost is less than the purchase price if you were just buying outright.

I mean I understand your frustration. But if you bought 3 copies of Microsoft Office 2019 prior to the release of Microsoft Office 2022, I don't expect Microsoft to just fork over copies of the new version. If you bought a copy of a video game, and 2 months later a sequel was released, I'd expect you to have to pay again.

I am subscribed to their newsletter. Unless I have some sort of mental block, or they all of a sudden decided to make a new version in September and whipped it up in a month, I didn’t see any news of it. I certainly don’t hang around their forums like I do here… I wouldn’t of bought any coppies. Seriously, I mean who would? Knowing another version was to be released.

One would think that when you use a product there would be specific mail sent to you “GUESS WHAT! WERE RELEASING A NEW VERSION THIS YEAR!” But nope. They’re granting a free version to people who bought after Oct 1st. I don’t understand why anyone would be happy. If I knew it was coming and bought anyway, that would be on me. But…

Stigg · Oct 28, 2023

I'm testing Start11 v2.0.0.1 Beta.
It may offer some benefits to others, but not for me.

antspants · Oct 28, 2023

Stigg said:
I'm testing Start11 v2.0.0.1 Beta.
It may offer some benefits to others, but not for me.

Cheers, @Stigg

They were boasting about an easier settings backup method.. but whoopdie doo. It isn’t hard to back up the registry key, which is all that is needed to restore Start11 settings on a re-install of Windows or the app itself.

I suppose the question is, will they still support and update the prior Start11

Stigg · Oct 28, 2023

@antspants
I see there is a version 1 Start11 v1.47.3 beta download available. The digital signature is dated July 29, 2023.
The release version, Start11 v1.47.2 digital signature is dated July 19, 2023.

So, it appears that there were plans to further develop Start11 version 1, then abandoned.
There must have been a decision to develop a completely new version instead.

antspants · Oct 28, 2023

Stigg said:
@antspants
I see there is a version 1 Start11 v1.47.3 beta download available. The digital signature is dated July 29, 2023.
The release version, Start11 v1.47.2 digital signature is dated July 19, 2023.

So, it appears that there were plans to further develop Start11 version 1, then abandoned.
There must have been a decision to develop a completely new version instead.

How nice of them.

Stigg · Oct 28, 2023

antspants said:
How nice of them.

It would have been a business decision. Maybe they're struggling financially.

I'm noticing a lot of licensing changes in the software industry, but this move was a bit rude, in my opinion.

Kees · Oct 28, 2023

I would have expected that to customers, who have bought a licence in the past year or so, they would offer the new version for half the prize. Not just a few dollars less.

Myself I did not even bother to look at the new version (and I'm not intending to do so afterwards). I immediately decided to leave Start11 and did uninstall the program.

It indeed is not about the money itself, it's about how things are done and presented. They presented it as if you can't use the old version anymore or at least won't get updates for that. Anyway, that was my impression.

pparks1 · Oct 29, 2023

antspants said:
I am subscribed to their newsletter. Unless I have some sort of mental block, or they all of a sudden decided to make a new version in September and whipped it up in a month, I didn’t see any news of it. I certainly don’t hang around their forums like I do here… I wouldn’t of bought any coppies. Seriously, I mean who would? Knowing another version was to be released.

One would think that when you use a product there would be specific mail sent to you “GUESS WHAT! WERE RELEASING A NEW VERSION THIS YEAR!” But nope. They’re granting a free version to people who bought after Oct 1st. I don’t understand why anyone would be happy. If I knew it was coming and bought anyway, that would be on me. But…

They are a commercial software company and are in business to make money. They want you to buy licenses for one product and then upgrade to another. I can see why you would be bummed out, but i can also understand why they wouldn't say, "hey you might not want to give us money now because a new version is just around the corner, or maybe 4 months away, or 9 months out....etc"

I don't use the the Stardock products, so I don't know how they conduct business. What i do know, is that their headquarters is literally within about 4 miles of my house here in Michigan.