Start11 odd behavior

popups on desktop

I have been a Start8/9/10/11 user for years, and only now have I seen something that confuses and concerns me. After installing Start11, every now and then I would see strange popups on my desktop (see image) related to a story from a website that I know for a fact I never visited. After months of troubleshooting, I narrowed it down to Start11 - when I uninstalled it, the issue stopped, when I reinstalled it, the issue began again. The random popup is annoying enough, but the idea that Start11 is linked to internet websites is troubling. It was enough for me to stop using the software altogether months ago, and the problem has never returned.

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Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. But, so far, if I remember correctly , this is the first time I read about this issue. Have you tried redownload the installer again directly from your product account page: https://store.stardock.com/myaccount/products. Install it, reboot immediately after the installation finished. Test it and report back.

Thank you.
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

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Did you by any chance install a Start Button from an outside source, like DeviantArt etc.?

Did you download and use an image from an outside source to use as the Start Menu or Taskbar background?

Are these popups clickable? If so, have you ever clicked one to see where it takes you?

Do you have Microsoft News installed?

This seems more like something a browser would do. It's very strange you only see this when Start11 is installed.

I also have been using Stardock's "Start" products since Start8 and have never seen this on my system, nor have I seen this issue reported before.

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I use Google Chrome exclusively. Did not download any extras. Popups are not clickable. Saw nothing unusual in the Windows logs.

When I type that message in quotes and search for it, a number of news websites are returned coincidentally showing that they posted the story the same day that I took the above screenshot - July 13. However, I did not visit any of those sites. To be clear, the previous other times this happened the popup contained a different message.

My biggest concern was that Start11 was allowing me to be hacked and that those popups were a remnant of someone else connected to my computer, though I found no evidence of that either.

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I also searched the phrase in your post and found multiple sites with that headline. I believe CNN was the original post with that headline. As you said all on July 13.

I am assuming you ran a security scan of your computer and found no malware.

I am also assuming you downloaded the Start11 installer from your account on the Stardock website.

The appearance or the look of this popup is also not like anything I have ever seen before.

I can't imagine that Start11 is responsible for this.

I would follow basj's recommendation above, but first run the Purge bat file,

https://forums.stardock.com/505872/start11-support-faq#reinstalling

and then reinstall.

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In the name of science, I will install the latest version of Start11 (1.4.7.2) and see how it goes. Previously, I was using 1.24 (June 2022). Any issues, I will report them here.

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Have you completed the purge and install of 1.47.2? Have you seen any more popups or did this resolve the issue?

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