DRHodgson

Reply to Start8 1.09 BETA Changelog in Start8 Stardock Forums

@ Neil Banfield - Ah right, that makes sense. Appreciate the reply even though the version number is trivial really.

Reply to Start8 1.09 BETA Changelog in Start8 Stardock Forums

There seems to be some confusion over the version number with this beta. The original v1.09 beta actually shows as v1.1, presumably v1.10, beta and this one, despite being referred to as v1.09.2 beta, actually shows as v1.1 beta 2 in Start8's config About menu!!! [e digicons]o_O[/e] So which is it?

Reply to update for WinFX not showing in Stardock Central Support Stardock Forums

I presume in this case v5.1 is the same as v5.10 but the zero has been omitted from the filename since it is considered superfluous. You're assuming v5.1 is actually v5.01 in which case v5.10 would indeed be a newer version. That is my understanding of the version numbers anyway.

Reply to [bug] Lock screen background changer in Decor8 Stardock Forums

I have the same bug which I reported in another thread along with others. Hopefully, the developers are aware of it but there was no response posted in that thread last time I looked. This bug is extra annoying because not only can I not change the Lock screen image with Decor8 since it keeps resetting back to that cartoonesque one with the tower next to water but I cannot even change to one of the default ones using the Charm bar settings either. I did accidentally stumble across a h

Reply to Lock Screen in Decor8 Stardock Forums

I'm unable to change the Lock screen either even though I have an activated copy of Windows 8 Pro 64-bit installed and have set Decor8 (v1.0) to Run as Administrator. The custom Start screen background works perfectly however (with parallax scrolling) so it is odd that the Lock screen doesn't. I select a background (1920x1200 JPEG), click on 'Apply selected background to my lock screen' and it greys out to show it has been set. I can then check what it looks like by cl

Reply to Windows 8 Fences Slow to Startup in Fences Stardock Forums

I bought Fences this morning and noticed that the desktop icons were taking 15 seconds or so to display upon booting up my PC. While testing another issue with Start8 which required me to disable Windows Defender then reboot I noticed that the icons appeared instantly. It looks like this is yet another issue caused by Defender. As the devs managed to fix some of the issues with Start8 in v1.1 BETA I'm confident that they can also erradicate the other issues too in time.

Reply to Error on starting Stardock Central in Stardock Central Support Stardock Forums

I managed to fix this issue by setting the Startdock Central app to Run as Administrator and now it works fine with no more annoying error message on startup. As such I can now set it to startup with Windows as I intended. It might be useful for future updates if they were set to run in elevated mode.

Reply to Start8 1.09 BETA Changelog in Start8 Stardock Forums

@ Neil Banfield - I did as you suggested and the Start > Games menu list appeared within 5-10 seconds, a little slower than Windows 7 but only by a second or two, so, yes, it does look as if it is Defender that causes the sluggish behaviour I'm experiencing. I can also scroll down the list much faster without it stopping and starting. Interestingly too, I'd just bought Fence 2.0 this morning and noticed that the icons take about 15-20 seconds to appear on the desktop after

Reply to Start8 1.09 BETA Changelog in Start8 Stardock Forums

I've just downloaded and installed this beta. It is showing as v1.1 BETA though not v1.09 BETA, presumably this is v1.10, a newer build than v1.09? The good news is that it fixes the sluggish access to All Programs menus with lots of shortcuts and sub-menus in them such as my 3Planesoft and Games folders. Thank you for that. The bad news is that the Start > Games menu (on the right hand side of the Start menu) which gives access to Games Explorer as a link or a me

Reply to Start8 very very slow to populate submenus - over 5 seconds for each. in Start8 Stardock Forums

@ tfouto I'm still using Windows Defender with Windows 8. I actually liked Microsoft Security Essentials when I had Windows 7 so it made sense to stick with its 'successor' even if it does seem buggier and sparser in terms of options.

Reply to Explorer restarts when searching from the Start 8 search box in Start8 Stardock Forums

Is the beta available to everyone or is it a closed one only available on request? If it's the latter then I'd very much like to test it as well please if it also contains the fix for the slow-to-display menu issue (caused by Defender).

Reply to Start8 very very slow to populate submenus - over 5 seconds for each. in Start8 Stardock Forums

I have the same issue as RichardBeal in that opening the Games folder from the right-hand side of the Start menu, which is set up as a menu with over 90 games in it, or the All Programs > Games or 3Planetsoft screensaver folder, which has some 20+ sub-folders, freezes Start8 for upto a minute on my system. The more sub-folders or shortcuts it has the longer the freeze lasts. Once they've been accessed then they open instantly on subsequent attempts but the sluggishness returns once I r

Reply to BUG: Pinned shortcuts with more than one period in the name are truncated. in Start8 Stardock Forums

I've noticed this too but I think it might be related to a Windows 7/8 bug as I've seen this isue with Windows 7 and I wasn't using Start8 then. Basically Explorer seems to randomly decide whether it shows the full name of files with periods in them. For example, I download drivers and rename them to show the complete version number but sometimes it is displayed in full and other times it isn't. There's no logic to it, it literally seems random as to whether the full filen

Error on starting Stardock Central in Stardock Central Support Stardock Forums

I've bought Start8 and Decor8 for Windows 8 Pro so I thought I'd download and install Stardock Central v2.8.5 to ensure that I always have the latest updates without having to check for them manually. Sadly, I get an error message when I start the program: Sorry, unable to setup automatic update checks. Please try again. If it fails again, you may run Stardock Central manually to retreive updates until this issue is resolved. The error makes it

Reply to [Request] Option to hide Metro Apps in Start8 Stardock Forums

I'd also like an option to not show any of the Modern UI apps in the Start8 menu except for the Windows 8 Menu option as I can easily switch to the Modern UI Start screen if I need to use any apps. Having the Modern UI apps showing in Start8 just makes an already packed menu even more cumbersome for me. If I manually set the Properties for the shortcuts to Hide in Start8 then those apps are hidden in the Modern UI Start screen as well. Not ideal.

Reply to Personalize your Windows start screen with Decor8! BETA Available Now. in Decor8 Stardock Forums

I tried Decor8 v0.95 beta last night and instantly liked it so I bought it there and then. I love the way the interface looks like a Modern UI app even though it isn't (the X in the top right corner to close it is a give away). Is it is possible to integrate it into the Modern UI Start screen so it runs a proper app (it could be called Advanced Customisation)? Although you can customise colour schemes, I'd like to see a way to give them individual names with a little two-colou

Reply to [BUG]Invisible row under "Modern UI Applications" in Start8 Stardock Forums

I have a number of blank entries in the Modern UI application folder too as well as one called 001fa. I thought I could right-click, Properties and check the Hide option but I noticed that one of the Mail accounts which I choose to pin to the Start screen disappeared so be careful about doing that. I suspect that the other blank entries are also Start screen apps that Start8 is not detecting correctly. Either way, the blank entries look like a bug so I'd like to see a future update of Sta

Reply to Bug: Start menu freezing for 30-90 seconds when accessing sub-folders in All Programs in Start8 Stardock Forums

I disabled Windows Defender and, lo and behold, the 3Planesoft folder opens within 2-3 seconds at most and Start8 no longer freezes so that is definitely the cause of the sluggish behaviour on my system. Also Game Explorer, in list format, now takes 5 seconds to display 90+ games rather than the 30-40 seconds it was taking before. Obviously, I don't want to have my only anti-virus software disabled so I'm going to have to find out how to stop it from scanning the folders where the All

Reply to Bug: Start menu freezing for 30-90 seconds when accessing sub-folders in All Programs in Start8 Stardock Forums

I've done some further investigation of this issue and found that the Start Menu and All Programs menu works fine so long as I do NOT click on either the 3Planesoft (screensaver) or Games folders. If I do then the menu freezes for a random amount of time, usually 30 seconds but sometimes over a minute. The commonality is that both of those menus contains lots of game shortcuts and sub-folders. My PC still works fine but the Start menu is stuck on top of everything else and won't close

Reply to Bug: Start menu freezing for 30-90 seconds when accessing sub-folders in All Programs in Start8 Stardock Forums

There are no problems reported by SMART on my boot SSD and Windows is otherwise very responsive and loads extremely fast (20 seconds from turning my PC on to it displaying the Start screen) and a further 5 seconds to display the desktop with around 50 shortcuts on it. As I type this, I'm waiting for Start8 to close the Start menu which has again frozen when I tried to access All Programs and clicked on the 3Planesoft folder to open it. It has just closed now after 45 seconds or so

Reply to Bug: Start button > All Programs scroll bar glitch in Start8 Stardock Forums

Just an update on this... I've just checked the menu scrolling with the bar/mouse button this morning and the grey box glitch seems to have gone, at least for this session, so if this is a bug or an issue specific to my machine then it is random and not replicable. The only thing I did was re-enable Transparency in the Start8 Configurator earlier on when I was fiddling around the settings.

Bug: Start menu freezing for 30-90 seconds when accessing sub-folders in All Programs in Start8 Stardock Forums

I've come across an issue when clicking on folders in All Programs that have about a lot of sub-folders or shortcuts inside them. For example, the 3DPlanesoft one has 20 sub-folders which contain 4-5 shortcuts in them and it will freeze the Start menu in place for 30-90 seconds. During this time, the menu is unresponsive and even states "Not responding" if I repeatedly click on it. All these screensavers are installed in the same C:\Program Files (x86)\3Planesoft folder with the executabl

Bug: Start button > All Programs scroll bar glitch in Start8 Stardock Forums

I've just noticed a bug with Start8 v1.02 on my Windows 8 Pro 64-bit install. Basically, I've been scrolling up and down the All Programs list with my mouse wheel so haven't noticed this glitch until now. If I hold down the button in the bar with the left-mouse button and move the mouse up or down to scroll through the list then a large grey box appears and obscures half of the list! This does not happen if I mouse wheel scroll up and down the list. Here's a sc

Reply to Start8 1.02 Update Now Available in Start8 Stardock Forums

To disable Start8 just go to Administrative Tools > Services and right-click on the Stardock Start8 entry. You can then choose to Stop it from running. If you want to stop it running with Windows then change the Automatic setting to Manual (or Disabled). Best to set to Manual though then you can still run it from a shortcut if you want to.

Reply to Stardock Please add these feature requests! in Start8 Stardock Forums

I've got Start8 v1.02 working as I'd like with the top-left and bottom-left hot corners both working as intended in Windows 8. The Start menu button also functions correctly too. So far so good. I just noticed while checking out the Start menu that the right-click > Rename option is missing from the context menu so please could you add that? I find it useful for tiding up, i.e. renaming, program shortcuts after they've been installed so I'd love to see it added back