Both Windows 10 and Windows 11 have native options to improve the Start Menu:
It won't give you the classic feel, but it costs $0 and requires no third-party software.
Because StartIsBack hooks directly into explorer.exe, aggressive registry cleaners or reset scripts can delete critical shell registry keys. Users have reported:
This is the most famous approach, popularized by a user named "Recon" on various cracking forums. It involves: startisback trial reset
This method is unreliable because Windows itself depends heavily on accurate time for SSL certificates, file updates, and authentication.
Before understanding the reset, you must understand the software itself.
Downloading a "StartIsBack trial reset.exe" from a torrent site or a random forum attachment is a classic malware distribution tactic. Security researchers have analyzed several such tools and found: Both Windows 10 and Windows 11 have native
It’s not about the $5. I’ve spent $5 on worse things—a stale gas station sandwich, a mobile game skin I used once.
It’s psychological. It’s the principle. It’s the same reason people jailbreak their iPhones or mod their Nintendo Switches. We don’t want to pay for the fix to a problem Microsoft created.
We feel entitled to the classic menu. It was there for 20 years. Microsoft broke it to sell you touch-screen ads in your start menu. Paying a third-party dev to fix Microsoft’s mistake feels like paying a ransom. It won't give you the classic feel, but
Resetting the trial feels like civil disobedience. It feels like sticking it to the man, even though the “man” in this case is a lone developer in Eastern Europe who actually did the heroic work.
A sophisticated batch script (often named reset_startisback.cmd) circulates on GitHub Gists and pastebin. It typically performs the following:
@echo off
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
timeout /t 2
reg delete "HKCU\Software\StartIsBack" /f
reg delete "HKLM\SOFTWARE\StartIsBack" /f
del /f /s /q "%AppData%\StartIsBack\*.*"
del /f /s /q "%LocalAppData%\StartIsBack\*.*"
del /f /q "C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\StartIsBack"
start explorer.exe
echo Reset attempted. Reboot recommended.
Note: This is an illustrative example. Modern versions of StartIsBack (v2.9.2+) will detect this and may corrupt the Start Menu entirely, forcing a Windows repair.
StartIsBack (now largely succeeded by StartAllBack for Windows 11) is developed by a single developer named Tihiy. It integrates deeply with Windows Explorer to replace the Start Menu, taskbar, and File Explorer ribbon with classic, high-performance alternatives.