After Macrium Restore, Start Menu Pins Gone

MattMcD488 · 07 Feb 2019

I decided to restore my desktop back on 1809 this morning using a Macrium backup image. I had been running 19H1 Insider Preview for a little over a month previously. After I finished the restore, my Start Menu was exactly as I'd left it, but after installing updates and rebooting, my pinned apps were empty except for Settings, Store, and Edge. I pinned everything again and rebooted for another update and it reverted back to the same 3 apps. I also can't customize which folders appear on Start or remove the all apps list.
I think it might be because my User folder is on a second drive which the Macrium image didn't touch so I'm guessing there are probably some settings in my AppData folder from 19H1 that are incompatible. Is there any way to go about fixing this without creating a new user profile and trying to migrate everything or going back to 19H1 Insider Preview?

Thanks in advance

dalchina · 07 Feb 2019

HI, just a thought- if your image was indeed of all the partitions comprising Windows and any necessary data/folders etc on any other partition or disk required for consistent operation, and you restored all those, you should have a system that works exactly as it was when you created the image.

If your image in fact excluded key items from a Windows installation and closely related partitions or disks which you had perhaps customised in some manner, then you might expect certain problems.

I would suggest you examine
a. what was imaged
b. what you restored from that

and whether there were indeed any omissions.

Looking at this from another viewpoint; if you have restored everything available and have some confidence as to what if anything was omitted from the image, you can perhaps assess what sort of repair might help- whether that be reinstalling apps, or an in-place upgrade repair install, for example.

MattMcD488 · 07 Feb 2019

Hi dalchina,

I made the backup right before I joined Insider Preview so I'd have a fallback in case it broke something. When I made the image I used Macrium's default setting to back up what was necessary for Windows, which made an image of my entire C:\ drive which is my 120GB SSD. However, when I initially installed Windows, I used an unattended .xml file to migrate the Users folder (following Kari's tutorial) to my D:\ drive which is on a separate 1TB HDD. This partition wasn't included in the Macrium backup. I figured it wasn't that important because it was just my personal files and games and I have copies of that stuff on an external HDD anyway. All of my installed apps and games seems to work fine and the system seems to work fine too except the start menu.

dalchina · 07 Feb 2019

Hi, you're correct that certain data for your start menu may not now align. Without knowing more about its implementation, it's hard to know quite what could give rise to the effect you're seeing, but certainly there are a couple of start menu-related folders other than those we're familiar with containing shortcuts.

You could try the various 'fixes':
Start Menu Troubleshooter in Windows 10 | Tutorials
Reset Start Layout in Windows 10 | Tutorials
Clear Live Tile Cache on Start in Windows 10 | Tutorials
Re-register Start Menu in Windows 10 | Tutorials

in hope that these may help.

Just considering briefly your installed progs (and then the start menu): if all your installed programs were the same before and after the restoration, then related folders will of course be present as appropriate. If you installed further programs after taking the image you have restored, you could well have redundant folders on Users on D: but they do nothing but take up space.

If you uninstalled progs after that image, you would now have redundant shortcuts in your start menu to those programs.

Note: I could not be certain that such an issue would be fixed by an in-place upgrade repair install, as you may appreciate.

MattMcD488 · 08 Feb 2019

Thanks dalchina,
I ran the Start Menu troubleshooter and it said my Tiles Database was corrupt, but it was unable to fix it. I then tried the other 3 options you listed and unfortunately those didn't fix it either. I also tried enabling the built in Administrator account, as well as creating a new local user, to check whether those were affected. They were exactly like my current account. I tried to reset/re-register all apps from the Administrator account and I got errors for a few saying the installed version was higher so I guess I have some leftovers from 19H1...

dalchina · 08 Feb 2019

Well, if you have a look around your moved user profile folders you will find, for example,
C:\Users\<name>\AppData\Local\TileDataLayer

I don't know how many more such items there might be where there could be a potential conflict...

Note this which is directly relevant:
How to fix your Windows 10 start menu (reset tile database) - Spiceworks

Windows 10 Start menu Troubleshooter results Tile Database Is Corrupt? Here how to fix

storageman · 08 Feb 2019

Does the op have a backup image of the partition in question that contains the transplanted user directories. If he does he should just restore that partition, then his tiles should be OK.

dalchina · 08 Feb 2019

Hi, that''s the problem: 3 or 4 posts back:

I used an unattended .xml file to migrate the Users folder (following Kari's tutorial) to my D:\ drive which is on a separate 1TB HDD. This partition wasn't included in the Macrium backup.

MattMcD488 · 09 Feb 2019

I made a new user account and unlocked the Administrator account on my desktop so that I could try moving the TileDataLayer folder. When I navigated to where it should have been located in the new user's AppData folder, it was not there. Thinking that might be the issue, I booted up my working laptop running 1809 and was surprised to find that folder didn't exist on the profile on that machine either. Since that was a bust, I'm currently running a repair upgrade from a fresh USB made with the Media Creation Tool and we'll see how that goes.

UPDATE: I was finally able to fix my issue. After a repair upgrade, the start menu returned to its default state but still wouldn't save my changes. I then tried to reset/re-register all apps again from powershell and noticed that I got an error for immersive control panel, a.k.a. the settings app. I then reset that one individually and after that the start menu started behaving again. Thanks again, dalchina for all of your advice and for helping me work through my issue.

dalchina · 10 Feb 2019

Great- you're welcome- it had to be a bit of trial and error in this case. Hope it continues well.