Start menu button not working,can't find windows update, after win8-10

Hi guys. My wife is having problems with her laptop, after apparently upgrading to Windows 10 from Windows 8.

The start menu button isn't working, and I tried some fixes after searching online, but they don't seem to work. I did the Powershell sfc checknow command, and after it ended, it said that it didn't find any issues. After that, I tried the Apppackage etc command, ( I can't remember it now, it's a long command), but it didn't show any changes, meaning no code came up on the powershell interface.

There are also problems with opening files, it takes really long to open any type of file, and sometimes it just hangs before opening. Also, I tried searching for Windows update settings, but I can't even find that! I'm not sure how else to proceed. Hope some kind soul here can help me. Thanks!

Most times there issues with the start menu after upgrades like that. So that issue is very common.

Add a new user and see if it works there.

Right click on start
Click command prompt admin
Accept the UAC prompt
Type net user test /add
That will add a user account named test with no password

Right click on start menu and sign out of account. There is an option to sign out or shutdown.

Login into the test account.

Hopefully you have a functioning start menu there.

Most users have had to do a clean install of Windows 10 to fix this issue.

Thanks lmaneke. I shall try out the steps you mentioned once I get home and keep you updated.

You can also create a new user account by right clicking on start, go to control panel. Change from category view to large icons. Go to user accounts It will give you an option to open the PC settings app in there to add user accounts there as well. Good luck.

Well, guess what. Last night I switched on the laptop after going home, and it was installing some updates for a while, and then it restarted and it was all back to normal! I have no idea what happened but it seems to be working fine now. Any ideas? Hope it stays that way, and do I have to do anything else? Also, the anniversary update was downloading in the windows update when I checked. ( This was after everything was back to normal and I was able to open the update settings). Should I update it ?

Yes, install the anniversary update.
Glad it's working