Start Menu Not Opening - Windows 10 64 bits

What browser is your default? If it is firefox, try unchecking the option to use FF as your default search for Windows.

Flame Red said:

No solution except trying to create another User, or fresh OS install. I tried restoring to a system image before it broke, no go. My solution - revert back to Windows-7 and all good. Windows-10 is not ready for prime time.

There was one relatively new solution posted since I gave up on Windows-10. Worth a try. Post your results here please.

https://www.tenforums.com/general-dis...tml#post337288

I want to revert ! But the instructions for reverting I find say that you go thru the start menu, and I can't open the start menu. Any ideas how to get around this? Thanks.

I have the same issue on two machines. One was upgraded to Windows 10, one was a completely new install of Windows 10. In both cases, the Start/Windows button stops working. The Windows key fails as well. Sometimes a reboot/logout-login will fix the problem. Sometimes not. No pattern or consistency to the failure but it happens about 40% of the time. A similiar issue is that Edge (browser) will fail to launch, or launch then immediately vanish. The two seem to be part of the new "Windows Apps" that aren't normal executables on the machine. Using the online-mentioned Powershell commands works at first, then the problem re-appears.

SOLUTION: Go to C:\Users\YourUser\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows, and rename UsrClass.dat to UsrClass.dat.old, ​and restart your computer.
If it doesn't work, you can create another admin account and make the same thing with your second account.

Remember that this process will delete all your windows apps. To restore them, all you need to do is type this command in an Admin Powershell:

Get-AppXPackage | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register
"$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

This worked fine for me, hope it works for you too :)

@Gabriel - Tried your solution. Didn't work for me, but thanks for posting. It did however remove the critical error message I was getting when I clicked on the start button, now, it just does nothing. I guess that's an improvement of sorts :)

If it werent' for my 3d graphics applications It wouldn't be so bad. I've created a new user that I'm using for everything but those. I have to use the gimped user for the graphics program because I'm too lazy to re-do years worth of file and library paths for the program. :)

No problem, hope you find a solution soon :)
Just a question, have you already tried "sfc/scannow"?

Yep, this has been an ongoing problem for a few weeks for me. Every day I search the net for a new idea or fix. none have worked for me yet. Hence, setting up the new user account. Kind of a pain but...oh well. I can get to everything I need other than the Microsoft store..and that's no big loss to me :)

bobdotus said:

I want to revert ! But the instructions for reverting I find say that you go thru the start menu, and I can't open the start menu. Any ideas how to get around this? Thanks.

I kept my Windows 7 drive cloned and that's how I reverted. I couldn't figure out how to revert otherwise.

I use Macrium Reflect to clone. It's good.

@Gabriel25569
As stated earlier in the thread, the powershell and other fixes "seem" to work at first, fixing the problem. However the issues of dissapearing StartMenus and Taskbars in Windows Ten reappear later. I'm up to three machines with the problem(s). Two are on a domain, one is not and they all have nothing in common. Two upgrades from Windows 7 and One installed from scratch. In all cases, the Taskbar and/or StartMenu just stop working. Might be fine for days, then stop. Sometimes a reboot or logout/login fixes the problem. Sometimes not. No discernible pattern that I've found. The powershell "reinstall" seems to fix it but it always comes back.

The best part about Windows Ten so far seems that the "Downgrade back to Windows 7" process seems to work very well. I've taken one machine back to Seven and every single bug introduced in Ten has gone away.

Very dissapointing overall.

I installed Windows 10 over my Windows 7 64 bit five times, and each time had the start menu problem. I use Acronis to backup an image of my computer, which successfully got me back to my Windows 7 each time. I also tried all the fixes that were being suggested, but without success. I then decided to try a clean install of Windows 10 and then reinstall all my software ( which was a pain ). When I tried to reinstall my Norton anti virus software, it said that this version of Norton was not compatible with Windows 10 and I must install the new version, which I did, and it worked fine. I was wondering if perhaps this was causing the problem of the start menu? Incompatible software which was trying to install over an upgrade?
Anyway, after a couple of weeks using Windows 10, I do not want to go back to 7, but I'm keeping the Windows 7 image a while longer, just in case.