Stardock

I recently had an incredibly frustrating experience with Start11, and unfortunately, I feel compelled to share my dissatisfaction with the community. My interaction with their customer service and the company's questionable business practices have left me thoroughly disappointed.

To begin with, I purchased Start11 with high hopes of enhancing my Windows experience. However, my optimism was quickly shattered when I discovered that I had been charged not once, not twice, but three times for the same product. The lack of transparency and apparent disregard for customer satisfaction at this stage was a cause for concern.

Upon realizing the overcharge, I promptly contacted Start11's customer support, expecting a swift resolution. To their credit, I did receive one refund, but the fact that I had to go through this tedious process in the first place was unacceptable. And after that, they charged me again. It reflected poorly on their payment processing system and raised questions about the reliability of their software.

The real disappointment came when Start11 decided to release a new paid update for existing customers. As someone who had already encountered issues with their billing system, the audacity to ask for more money for what should have been included in the initial purchase left me flabbergasted. It felt like a blatant cash grab, and I couldn't help but feel taken advantage of as a loyal customer.

Moreover, the lack of substantial improvements in the new update only added insult to injury. The features offered did not justify the additional cost, making it evident that Start11 prioritizes profit over delivering real value to its users.

In conclusion, my experience with Start11 has been far from satisfactory. The multiple charges, the hassle of obtaining a refund, and the audacious move to release a paid update for existing customers have left me questioning the integrity of this company. I strongly advise potential customers to think twice before investing in Start11 and consider alternative options with more transparent and customer-oriented practices.

I have been using stardock's win-customize product, which is a dreamscape animated desktop background and i own most of their software products.

So I bought Fences 3 on steam and just a few months later they released fences 4 and they no longer update fences 3 which does not work on windows 11 that well, Stardock should be investigated for business fraud.
Stardock has disgusting support and business practices that should be investigated.

I found Stardock while trying to make little tweaks to my desktop. They develop many different apps that modify and enhance the look, feel, and even operation of Windows.

Most of their apps have free versions that offer some functionality. I am using an app that changes the boot screen and login screen to Vista. TweakXP is probably their most popular app and it gives you lots of control over how Windows starts and acts.

Stardock itself is neat. It provides a Mac style application launcher. Individually, these apps will nickle and dime you to death, but they can be purchased together at a significant savings. But if your a cheap-skate like me, you can find some free cool stuff too.

I've used software from stardock for several years, pretty much from when they first came out. And what used to be great support experiences when problems came up, they now won't even talk to you or help you unless you are using their pretty useless forums. They say that " The forums are staffed with support personnel, developers, and seasoned users of our products. You will be well served there." but guess what? Each time used thier forum, i was lucky to get a single response! And those few were NOT " support personnel, developers, and seasoned users of our products". And most of the time, i never received the useless responses for over a week or two after i posted! Avoid these people and save your money, they arent worth anything

A few years ago I bought fences for a win 10 pc. I liked the idea, but after a few weeks my pc got so slow that it did'nt work any more in a sensible way.
I removed fences but something was very wrong and I replaced the hardrive with a new ssd and installed a fresh windows. I did not put Fences back on it and to this day this pc still works fine.

I had a laptop that had to be upgraded to win 11, not by me, but bij microsoft, in fact against my will. I really disliked the windows 11 compared to windows 10, but I was forced into this lesser OS.

Then I remembered Stardock software and I thought lets give it another try.
But that was a big mistake: this software ( object desktop which contains all their programs) is a piece off crap that slows down your entire system next to unusable. The programs that I put in groupy just dissapeared and never turned back only after uninstalling groupy and restarting the laptop.

I will never buy anything from them again: waist of money and time, which is a shame because the ideas are good.

Asks way too much money for some stupid costumizations and spams very much on emails, costumization products should be free to use for everyone

On the 10th October I purchased Object Desktop using my PayPal account, I received an email from PayPal immediately that the payment for $29.99. Was received but I did not receive a license from stardock.

After that I never received an email from stardock with a license, the email they have listed on PayPal is *******@fastspring.com how is that supposed to help customers? After I googled for an hour I found an email *******@stardock.com so I emailed them and explained the problem, I received no reply so I called your number *******677 and got the usual runaround and not able to speak to a real person so I finally was able to send a voice mail. That was 2 days ago.

Finally this morning they left me know choice but to put in a claim with PayPal

This is the worst experience I have ever had trying to purchase software, don't buy from them

Terry Hancock

Stardock (Stardock.com) touts itself as "a cutting-edge innovator specializing in desktop utility software and PC entertainment". Basically, they market utilities for your PC (laptop, desktop) that are meant to improve some functions and to customize or "beautify" your workspace.

MY personal favorites include CursorFX which *used to* (now they are selling many) allow you to download and use a myriad of animated cursors (they are lovely), and their IconPackager which they SAY allows you to change all your Windows icons "at once" with custom icon packages. Also lovely... but in theory more than practice.

You see, the problem is that while the promise of these great customization programs is fantastic, seldom does the follow-through match.

I do genuinely like CursorFX and at $4.99 it is (in my estimation) worth it, because there is a huge database on WinCustomize.com where you can download cursor packages for use with it. (EDIT: note that they limit downloads to 6 a day and more and more now, are charging for some 'featured' cursors). I will include pictures of a few different cursor themes below. The problem, in addition to limiting downloads and now charging for some, is that beyond selling it as such, they also say that you can create your own cursors with it... and that's a reach. You need additional programs to create usable static cursors, and if you want to animate them, well, good luck with that! There is no good tutorial on doing so, and the response from the Stardock Help Desk and/or community forum leaves a LOT to be desired. I actually had one guy trying to up-sell me to a $29.99 program which I had no need for.

IconPackager is pretty nice as well, except there are only a limited number of packages you can download to go with it, and of these packages, not all of them change "ALL" of your system's icons, as the program says it will do. Many, many times you end up with a system that has a few IconPackager icons and the rest are your default icons, which looks pretty terrible (exactly the opposite of what you were going for). To correct this is A LOT of work since you have to do it manually and half the time it doesn't work unless you use an outside program to supplement the icons or finish it off. It feels unfinished, and hardly worth the price when you not only have to do all the work yourself, but when it messes up (and it will), and you have to start over. Also, as with CursorFX and making your own cursors, support for IP is pretty limited as well, although you DO get users and "skinners" who are amiable and try to help.

The major issue is that despite these people who try to help, generally, if one goes through the Stardock forum, you will see many users asking for help, direction, etc. on several of the programs Stardock sells, and the majority of times you will see a reply which reads: "we are forwarding this along to our technical help team for an answer" (I am paraphrasing), but it is hardly EVER followed up with an ACTUAL ANSWER.

In short, it feels as if Stardock as a whole, is an entity with great ideas... but ZERO follow-through.

They are good at selling their programs which for the most part seem to be only half-finished, half-tested and half-perfected, and which have no support behind them. That's a shame, because there are many, many like me who love to customize their workspace and who would happily buy from them and recommend them, IF ONLY their programs were all that Stardock PURPORTS THEM TO BE.

They are not.

2.5/5 Stars

Te dicen que es gratis, pero el registro no funciona. Te llega un correo para verificar la cuenta, pero luego no funciona. ESTAFADORES.

Please be careful, they don't provide legal invoices. I bought and wrote everything they asked me but nowhere there was to write the legal details, I asked it afterwards and they denied me to make the invoice with company details.

Stardock is designed to enable users to control the way their operating system looks, feels and functions. It specialised in desktop utility software and PC entertainment.

I have used fences and some of the other stardock products at home and liked it so much that I purchased a license and got special permission by my employer to install it on my company laptop. Has since promoted it internally for its productivity and the great feature to be able to hide a cluttered desktop before a client presentation.
Now I have changed PC both at home and at work. I have followed the instructions to request a move of licenses. No answer from Stardock and I have now uninstalled and I am trying the freeware products out there as I am not that eager to pay again for the same license when treated like this.

Unfortunately I had a very similar experience to Cecilia. I had to reinstall windows also and I had backed up the original installer file. Unfortunately the original installer file no longer works, as it calls back to Stardock servers and doesn't allow re-installation without a current subscription. Stardock's own knowledge-base even says that any installers you have will continue to work (and this is the only installer I ever received). Their customer service has the audacity to say that this installer is just a "manager" and you have to find and backup the smaller individual install files that the first installer downloads into a stardock folder on your PC when you initially install it. This is such a pathetic excuse and honestly terrible business tactics. They've lost a paying customer now, never again will I purchase from them. Now I've seen similar reviews on a few website, I feel silly for not checking first.

I'd give the company a "0" if I could. You see, I purchased--for 49.95--Object Desktop in January 2010. In order to continue receiving updates, I "renewed" my registration one year later. In January 2012, this registration expired once more, but due to moving and being busy, I did not renew. Plus, I had already spent nearly 70 dollars on this software.
Fast forward to April 2012. Had a hard drive failure, and had to reinstall Windows. Attempted to re-download my software (with versions up to January 2012), and was informed that I could not do this, that I'd have to renew the registration again. If you check out the FAQs at Stardock's website, they tell you your software is yours to keep, even if the registration expires--you just can't get more updates.
After spending what I did, I wound up with nothing. Buyer beware! If this is not deceptive practices, I don't know what is!