Start Menu and Cortana Not Opening - Windows 10

My start menu will not work in Windows 10.

• Cortana/Search also doesn't work. When I click it, it does nothing.
• If I right click on my search bar, I see a bunch of options like "Disk Management" and "Control Panel." These are clickable, except for "Search," which does nothing when I click on it.
• My taskbar works, sort of. I can click on my pins (Google Chrome, etc), but if I right click them, no options come up.
• Clicking on my volume, calendar, clock or all of those options does not work, either. If I right click them, each of their options pop up.

Anybody have any idea on how to fix this?


Thanks.

IME, Start Menu/Taskbar not working is caused by user profile corruption. I suggest creating a new user, sign in, and see if the Start Menu is working for the new users. This will confirm whether your original profile is corrupted.

claytoncarney said:

IME, Start Menu/Taskbar not working is caused by user profile corruption. I suggest creating a new user, sign in, and see if the Start Menu is working for the new users. This will confirm whether your original profile is corrupted.

I also cannot create a new profile or sign in with my Microsoft account instead. These options do absolutely nothing when pressed. The blue loading circle comes up, but nothing ever opens...

Actually I never use MS accounts. I was referring to a local user account. From an Administrator Command Prompt you execute a command like 'net users username password /add' (password is optional). Then you can sign in and see if the Start Menu works.

Okay, I created a new account. However, when I tried to login, I got a blue screen with this message:

"The User Profile Service failed the sign-in. User profile cannot be loaded."

So I can't even login to see if it would work on another account.

OK, Plan B. If you can still access an Administrator Command Prompt, try a couple hail marys:

• Execute 'sfc /scannow'. This will check for system file corruption.
• Execute 'dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth'. This will attempt to repair image corruption.