StartIsBack

The only valid solution to have a taskbar moved to the side in Windows 11. Reasonably priced, even if you want to enable this across multiple computers.

Clean implementation - seems load as a hook - so no extra process. Running ProcessMonitor it seems nothing nefarious is happening - no network calls (unless checking for updates), very very clean.

Kudos to developer for doing something Microsoft decided was too complicated to solve.

Started out with Classic Shell, then moved to Open Shell once it died, now I'm moving here since Open Shell has a few unfixed issues and development has seemed to have nearly completely stopped. Out of all the paid for options this one seems like the nicest version that just works and is the only one without DRAM that I find too intrusive. The wording on the license allows you to transfer the license to new computers you just have to wait 30 days from the last time you activated a given license on your old computer, and comes with lifetime updates. The Dev is active on twitter and appears to be very unimpressed with windows 11 which is encouraging as well as it means there is good likelihood that StartIsBack will be updated to run on it once it's out.

Great alternative to Windows 10's start menu. Way more customisation options. Easy enough to still access the native start menu if desired (middle-mouse click).

It works and while not free, it is very cheap.

Best option to replace Classic Shell as of 12/24/2017

"Unlike other solutions, StartIsBack goes directly to desktop every time without flashing Metro Start Screen even for a millisecond."

Finally ! Something to completely skip Metro Start Screen ! Start menu in corner of the screen just like windows 7 and customisable icon is a nice bonus too.