Strange "Powershell Unable To Start" Error @ W10 Shutdown + MS Blames Start 11 (v1.47)

Hello,
I have forwarded your problem/question to Stardock Support Team for their assistance. Please keep an eye on this thread for any updates. We appreciate your feedback and patience.

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Thank you.

@basj  I corrected the error wording to be exactly what I am seeing,

If you disable the option to sync OS pins - Click the configure menu link on the main config screen and then scroll to Advanced options - and reboot does the issue go away?

Can't find that Advanced Options on that screen in Start11  I'd post the image of it if I could find how to do it in the above menu here.

I've noticed the same issue on both Windows 10 and then on Windows 11 when Start11 is installed.

If you look at the processes tree, you'll see explorer.exe keeps loop-starting powershell.exe with the command line pointing to some XML file in TEMP folder. This in turn generates a lot of CPU cycles and destroys battery life and also shows the same error popup on shutdown.

Is that happening over and over normally?

That's not intended.

It happens only occasionally when I shut down Windows 10.  But not in Windows 11.

It;s not really a nuisance as the shut down proceeds normally.

Below is the command the powershell.exe command with params that is being executed. I had uninstalled Start11 earlier today and it stopped the loop. Reinstalled it now and it started doing it again.

"C:\WINDOWS\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe" -command "Export-StartLayout -path "C:\Users\Romas\AppData\Local\Temp\tempDS11A.xml""

aI just went into the settings and disabled "Sinchronize pinned items from the OS menu with Start11" option and the powershell.exe script loop stopped.

Enabling the option again, signing out and back in resumes looping...

I never thanked you, sorry about that but never got notification.

I'm seeing these exact same symptoms on Windows 11 x64 Enterprise Edition, 23H2 with Start11 2.0.5.  PowerShell starting and stopping every half second or so to export the start layout.  In 2.0.5 (on my machines anyways0, there is no Advanced settings submenu under configuration to disable the sync.

Extremely annoying and eats alot of I/O, to the point that I'm going to have remove Start11 and go back to OpenShell.

dcc

Which menu style are you using?

If you are using Win7/Modern, set it to Win10 quickly, then click the settings option and scroll down and untick the sync option.

Then switch back to Win7/Modern.

It sounds like something is triggering Start11 constantly but I cannot say why but we will continue to investigate why a few people encounter this and everyone else does not.

Yes - I **was** definitely using W7/Modern.  I've already uninstalled and gone back to OpenShell.  I'll try that in a while and update you.

Hi Neil - that seems to have resolved it.  Thanks.