Hello,
I have forward your request to the Stardock Support Team for their review and recommendations. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We really do appreciate your feedback, Thanks

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

Thanks.

I'm sad to say that it's Windlowblinds that's killing Windows file manager. It wasn't happening at first. I think, though am not certain, that the problem began happening after I turned on Curtains instead of Windowblinds then changed my mind and went back to WB. Though it might possibly be Deskscapes because I also started using that and it's never really seemed that stable. Unfortunately the results of turning things off one by one to see what happens aren't helpful because once the problem starts it doesn't go away until Stardock things are off, no matter what order they're turned off in. But starting WB alone did make it happen again.

I am going to uninstall the whole thing then reinstall without Curtains and see what happens. Curtains and Windowblinds seem so similar, at least from the user perspective, maybe you should integrate them at least in the user experience if not the actual implementation. Put them in one UI, so if we pick a WB theme then Curtains turns off and vice-versa instead of having both running when only one seems to be controlling what we see on the screen.

PS., You also might want to emphasize that Start 10 and Start 11 should be installed on an either/or basis and not both. Or at least I think that's how it is. I installed both without knowing that all I really needed and wanted was 11 (even though I run Windows 10; maybe you should stop referring to things as 10/11 when they aren't actually tied to either Windows version). I think that might have caused a little bugginess that would have been avoided if I had only ever installed Start 11 to begin with. Sometimes my mouse doesn't click correctly until I turn Start 11 off or restart it. I'll see what happens after my clean Stardock re-install.

My uninstallation progress is already telling me some things by showing me a simple list of what software of yours is installed. A small thing is that you're enjoyment of cute names in the home furnishings theme ("blinds," "curtains," "tiles") is starting to obscure the function of your programs a bit too much as your collection grows. A more important thing is you ought to be more exclusive about what versions of things we can install and run. I always have Groupy 32 and Groupy 64 both running, and I see on my uninstall list that I have Fences 3 and 4 installed. One should normally replace the other, shouldn't it?

Your Start 11 ought to have an unload whether or not Microsoft's own thing does. Maybe theirs should too, but I don't have high expectations of them.

The problem I was having seems to be from Windowblinds, but fortunately only with one skin/theme so far. It's a shame because it's a nice one, but that's not any kind of deal breaker regarding the whole software.