When it comes to Windows customization, the Start menu is one of the most popular elements to modify, especially because Microsoft keeps changing it, and not always for the better. To that end, Start11 is one of the most popular options out there, but another great Start menu customization tool is StartAllBack.

While there are pros and cons to both of these apps, I wanted to highlight some of the reasons you might want to use StartAllBack instead of Start11 on your Windows 11 PC.

4 It's cheaper

Half the price is a pretty good deal

First off, StartAllBack is a cheaper offering than Start11, so that alone might make it more appealing to some people. While Start11 costs $10, StartAllBack can be yours for just $5 for a single PC, with multi-PC licenses bringing the price down even more so. A license for two PCs costs $9, and for three PCs, you'll pay just $12.

StartAllBack also has a more generous trial period of 100 days, so you have more time to determine if the app is worth buying. It's a good deal overall.

3 It looks great

Super-smooth animations and a modern look

Start11 and StartAllBack both do a good job of following the Windows 11 design language, but it can't be understated how great StartAllBack really looks. It starts with the animations for opening the Start menu, which are incredibly smooth and pleasant to watch. Start11 looks fine, but it does look just like the default Windows 11 menu, and it can sometimes be a bit slower to load or buggy. StartAllBack feels extremely smooth to use, even more so than Microsoft's own animations.

What's more, the StartAllBack developer also does an excellent job of modernizing classic Start menu designs to fit right in Windows 11. Again, Start11 does this to some extent, but it's great to see a Windows 7-style Start menu that looks so good on Windows 11 and doesn't feel out of place at all. You can also change things like the color and the type of transparency effect used for the Start menu, so it will look just how you want it.

2 A dock-like taskbar

It does look more modern

A lot can be said about the macOS dock and how it compares to the taskbar on Windows 11, but I think it's hard to disagree that the dock at the very least looks cleaner, giving your wallpaper the full screen space to shine. StartAllBack gives you that more modern look if you want it to, with the option to turn your taskbar from a full-width UI element into various segments.

What that means is you'll see your taskbar icons in dedicated segments, but the empty space is fully removed to make room for your desktop background, and it looks great. This is something Start11 can't really do, and 'd say it's a cool benefit of StartAllBack. Plus, you can change things like the color and transparency of the visible taskbar elements.

1 It also fixes File Explorer

Proper dark mode and a ribbon UI

One of the best things about StartAllBack, however, is the fact that it doesn't just change the Start menu; in fact, it tries to fix many of the inconsistencies of Windows 11's UI, specifically File Explorer. A major element of this is applying dark mode to various UI elements that somehow don't have it yet. It's kind of ridiculous that it's been almost 10 years since dark mode was added to Windows, but so many things still don't support it. Transferring a file? That dialog is still white. So is the Properties window. And that's not to mention the Control Panel.

StartAllBack fixes all this, meaning if you use dark mode, you'll now see it in the Properties dialog of File Explorer, the file transfer window, and even the Control Panel. Windows 11 looks so much more consistent this way and you'll probably even forget this isn't a built-in feature because it feels so natural. Not every dialog is affected, but this goes a long way.

But that's not all, because StartAllBack also fixes another problem with the Windows 11 File Explorer: the lack of a Ribbon UI. The Ribbon was added in Windows 8, and it made so many options easily available with a single click or a couple of clicks, but Windows 11 undid that and created a cleaner, but less capable UI that requires more clicks to get to all the features you might want to use.

StartAllBack not only brings the Ribbon back, but it actually modernizes all the iconography so, just like the Start menu itself, this feels perfectly at home in Windows 11. All the icons look beautiful and fit right in, and even the Ribbon tabs themselves have a more modern look, unlike many other tools that restore the Ribbon. What's more, you still have support for folder tabs with this tool — a feature that's often lost with other tools that restore the Ribbon.

StartAllBack is fantastic

Whether you prefer the classic style of Start menu or not, StartAllBack is a very interesting tool that can make your Windows 11 PC look a lot better, and it does so for a very low price all things considered. Simply turning the taskbar into a segmented UI element and fixing File Explorer already makes this an excellent tool to have on a Windows computer.

But that's not to say the Start menu customization isn't great, too. StartAllBack looks legitimately great, providing a modern-feeling version of classic Start menu designs, complete with smooth animations you can't get anywhere else. I highly recommend checking it out, and I suspect you'll find it's worth the price of admission.

  • StartAllBack

    If you're not a fan of recent changes in Windows 11, like that Start menu and File Explorer. StartAllBack lets you go back to the good old days.