Ok, so it is something on my end. Now the detective work begins...

Something interesting I just discovered. If I have the windows task bar showing the icons after clicking the ^ (or I hit Win+B then Enter) then I click the + on the NextStart task bar it shows the icons under the NextStart taskbar for a fraction of a second then immediately closes it.

Ah!

So the problem might actually NOT be the ENTER key being "eaten", but the expansion window being closed so fast that it seems like nothing happens when you click on "+"

Looks like "something else is grabbing the focus" problem.

Try downloading this small Foreground Tester app from HERE, unzip and run the executable. See what grabs the focus after clicking on the "+" sign while the Windows taskbar is also visible.

Ok, so clicking on the task bar gives the following:

50A54 - explorer.exe -
902C4 - explorer.exe - System tray overflow window

Then when I click the + nothing else shows up in the Foreground Window Tester but the overflow tray shows up under the Nexus taskbar then disappears.

Also, the other icons next to the ^ are not shown in the system track on the Nexus taskbar (assuming they are supposed to, if not then ok).

Focus is probably changing too fast for the polling rate of the foreground window tester...

Try the following: click the "+" on the NextSTART taskbar but do NOT release the left mouse button immediately - hold it for a sec, the foreground window tester should pick up the NextSTART taskbar. Then release the button. What happens?



It's not supposed to since 23H2 as Microsoft changed the code and 3rd party applications can no longer access the tray icons directly.

Did what you suggested. Even held my button down for a count of 10. The foreground tester didn't pick up a thing.

officially give up. Reinstalled fresh 24H2. Still workshelf alone is 10% CPU. Looks like I'll have to do without my docks.

Hold on... there is something else I introduced in v23.11 (adding "System Interrupts" to the list of running processes and also getting CPU Utility usage, both via Performance Counters) that I suspect *might* be behind this, but I can't be sure until I make some changes to the code...