Start button vanishes?

It's definitely a Windows glitch! Upon seeing a fresh clean install get this from the BT folder on a VM all seemed to go well last weekend until finding I ended up with a stubborn Start button! I have to wait and wait at times to get it open while other times it will open a couple of times on the spot before acting up again.

You won't have to worry about what programs you are running being a concern since this is even more commonly seen with upgrade installs from the previous versions which tend to turn out seeing glitches like this when something doesn't go on fully! And that is just has happened too often. Join the club!

Well, a couple of days I had no issues. Then, windows loaded fine but not only start button doesn't work but programs refuse to launch. Edge, Chrome...they are visible in TaskManager as running programs (and several instances too) but nothing opens onscreen.

Restarted via right button click, no change nothing works.

Turned off power completely and drained the motherboard power by holding down start button while off, rebooted, everything works fine!

I'm more and more convinced this is something about memory / mobo compatibility combined with some windows driver glitches or such.

Maybe I should try to swap memory chips.

What you did there was simply recycle power on the supply by draining the caps. I have to do that there at times when after shutting down completely the main won't fire back up right away until the supply is tended to. None of that effects how the Start button, menu, or anything else works in Windows however.

Some time back someone posted how they had used the Power Shell option to restore the Windows application package when running into the Start button, Start menu problems on an upgrade. With 10 bringing in the new start menu removed from 8 originally there's seems to be a common glitch with it that is system related more then anything. I don't know if this will help any since 10 has progressed along quite a bit from the early Alpha to Tech Preview builds. But ghacks had one older guide on how to backup as well as restore the Start menu in 10 you can look over. How to backup or reset the start menu in Windows 10 - gHacks Tech News

Here I bypass that type of problem for the most part by running with the Stardock START10 alternative app. While that has stalled on a few occasions where the Start button disappeared but still showed the Start10.svr process still running I simply went to the program's folder not link option in the menu and checked for an update which then saw that corrected. The $5 fee is for the lifetime account per each pc not just a one time download and license key it seems.

The second desktop on the other hand just saw an update stall out with an error about the update's exe set up file. So I guess which ever way you choose to go there will be some bug coming up you have to work with or work around it seems! Yet the Start10 as well as regular Start menu always seem to manage on VM after VM without running into any!

What I have found out so far is this;

It never occurs after a completely cold boot. Meaning, the motherboard having had no power whatsoever for a while.
Typically I keep my PC always in power; just turn it off and it shuts down, but of course mobo lights stay on etc.

But if I physically disconnect the power by means of an external power switch in the extension cable...it always boots correctly and has the start button functioning and all. I just switched the PC power to the same extension cable (with switch) as the monitor etc. and now it works fine it seems.

Go figure.

Random thought- try turning off fast startup. No idea if that will help, but does solve some odd quirks related to power up for some people.

Might be an idea! I suspect what is being seen from a cold start is all 10 functions are being loaded fresh when first powering everything up without necessarily being anything hardware but still strictly Windows system related in origin. Remember the Start button and Start menu are GUI items that load after the main base processes are fired up as the desktop arrives.

The main shell is already loaded by that time while each is a separate item on it's own. Sounds like a fast restart won't see that item loaded up again automatically as it should indicating you are still seeing an unfixed glitch in 10 itself. I had another stubborn bug when running with the Threshold 2 build for two months where I could no longer name new folders or even rename existing ones without any solution found. I re-enabled the Get insider builds option and have only seen one minor bug with the Windows sounds function with two or three builds only since having seen each newer build from the 14257 forward. That came up on the 14295 build and stayed on with the 315 and 295 that followed but then cleared on on the 328 and now 332 presently on. The upgrade by update fixes the unsolvable at times!