SOLUTION HERE
I've bought Start11 hoping to cover up that abortion Microsoft dares call a start menu, but it won't pop up.
The menu works fine when I use the windows button on my keyboard, but clicking the Windows button does fuck all. When I go into the Start 11 config, menu "Control", sub header "On the Desktop", and set option "Clicking the start button opens" to "Start 11 menu unless in tablet mode" I at least get the abortion menu back.
Strange thing is, win11 doesn't seem to have a tablet mode, and thus no option to disable tablet mode.
I've upgraded to win11 from a fully updated win10 into dev channel, and switched to beta channel when it came available. I've never used tablet mode in win10.
Is this a bug, or am I doing something wrong? Thanks for any help you can give me!