Eldritch Wolf

Quick update: It's been a month since I reported this issue and provided the developer with a video capture demonstrating the behavior. I have heard nothing further from the developer. I'm not familiar with the frequency of updates for the product and/or communication from the developer, so I don't know what's normal. A major reason for my interest in StartAllBack (vertical taskbar) is now seeing support from a competitor, so I'll keep my eyes open here for future updates, but it's looking less likely that I'll be patiently waiting for this to be fixed.

I have not heard anything about the VPN issue at this point. But that certainly does not mean the developer is ignoring it. It's quite possible (probable?) that this is an unintended bug the developer will be getting fixed. Unfortunately, it's a crippling and disqualifying limitation for me (and potentially others) until it does get fixed. I don't use VPN to mask my IP. I use it to access secured servers for work, so VPN is required for my usage scenario.

You'll find a video of the problem here: SAB Networking Issue I start with SAB disabled and show how the networking tray icon accesses all the normal options, including vpn. Once SAB taskbar handling is engaged and a restart triggered, I return to the tray icon. But now it only shows the wireless config options instead of all the various networking options. Also, once SAB's taskbar is engaged, any attempt to directly connect/disconnect to the vpn via the control panel switches me to the same wireless config operations on the tray icon. When SAB's taskbar is disengaged and a restart triggered, the standard Windows networking behaviors are correctly restored. Hope this helps! And I hope it's an easy fix, since it looks like it's just the wireless sub-level of networking that gets shown instead of the top-level networking options. Good luck with the bug hunt. Happy holidays!

Perhaps wrongly, I assumed the developer would check on the forums for bug reports periodically. If that's not the case and I need to tag him, then I'm happy to do so. However, I don't know whom to tag. If you could please provide that, I would appreciate it. Thanks!

I understand your complaint. What I don't understand is how it pertains to my request to have the product allow me to use VPN alongside its customizations of the taskbar and start menu. The two seem orthogonal to me. Unless you're saying that the developer of the product has somewhere stated he objects to VPN in principle and has intentionally removed support for it. That's something I'd be completely unaware of as a prospective new user. IFF it's the latter, then I'll uninstall the product and move on. The developer must know that he's losing out on prospective users with that philosophy, but that's his prerogative. If it's the former, then I would really like it fixed so I can use the product AND access VPN to do my work. I'm hoping it's the former at this point.

I don't understand that reply. I don't care about twitter, facebook, or the rest. I work remotely. To securely access the servers to do my work, I need to utilize VPN. I would like to utilize this product AND do my work. So I would like basic VPN to be allowed to coexist alongside the product - not be removed by it. Is that somehow an unreasonable request?

It sure looks like StartAllBack has rendered VPN inaccessible when the toolbar is enabled. I hope this was accidental and/or I'm overlooking something here. I'm running Windows 11 on a newly setup PC. I just downloaded the product over the weekend, so I assume I'm using the latest version. When I disable StartAllBack, clicking the network icon in the task tray shows me the option to enable/disable wireless, but VPN is conspicuously absent. If I disable StartAllBack, the VPN option again appears alongside the wireless options. If I right-click on the network tray icon, I can open the network connections list, where the VPN connection is shown. I had hoped this would work as a stopgap solution. Unfortunately, selecting the VPN connection and then clicking any of the Connect/Disconnect options does not perform that operation. Instead, it pops up the wireless display options associated with the tray icon, which omit the VPN entirely. So even attempting to use the control panel to access the VPN is being short-circuited by StartAllBack. If I disable StartAllBack, all of those behaviors return to working properly again. Since VPN access is core to my workflow, this behavior is crippling and precludes my ability to utilize StartAllBack. I can't imagine this was intentional, so please get this fixed. Then I can purchase a few copies, since the tool otherwise seems to be working sufficiently well for my purposes. Thanks!