Start menu or search won't open

I did a clean install of w10 from w7 a couple of months ago and everything has been running fine until about a week ago since when I've not been able open the start menue. Reading through other posts on line with the same problem has not provided a solution so far. I've ran the DISM/Online/Cleanup-Image/Restor Health and that "completed suucessfully" Then ran a fsc/scannow and that "did not find an integrity violations".
I've tried to do a system restore but it fails saying a fil;e is preventing it, maybe the anti-virus.
It's driving me nuts and if anyone ccan suggest a solution I'd be most grateful.
Thanks

Had this issue for over a month now.. No start menu, horrible response in system (Right click, WIN+E, startup time etc..) Not anything you can do unfortunately, even after a clean install the issue comes back after a couple of weeks for me. It seems to happen on some weird timer, I made a complete backup the moment after I did a clean install, and another one that kept backing up every day. When this dreaded bug came back I restored the backup from the day before, and everything was fine for approx 1 day. Then it came back. When I went back to the backup right after the clean install, it worked great for a couple of weeks again. I swear MS is putting some timed nukes on all my installs lol.

Since you already tried all those commands (They did nothing for me either), you should consider doing a clean install, or uninstalling your antivirus and then try restoring the backup. If you are SOL with the current backup you have, you might want to backup all the files you need somewhere safe, and reinstall windows. Then make a proper backup of your win drive with something other than windows I guess (Acronis true image works wonders for me), and pray it doesn't happen again further down the road. I thought about going back to Win 7, which has worked perfectly for 3+ years when this bug wouldn't leave me alone, but I am sure the second I do that MS is gonna release a fix. It is taking an awfully long time though, and it seems to be pretty common.. And nothing official on it from MS kinda makes me wonder if they are even looking into it :/

stigus said:

Had this issue for over a month now.. No start menu, horrible response in system (Right click, WIN+E, startup time etc..) Not anything you can do unfortunately, even after a clean install the issue comes back after a couple of weeks for me. It seems to happen on some weird timer, I made a complete backup the moment after I did a clean install, and another one that kept backing up every day. When this dreaded bug came back I restored the backup from the day before, and everything was fine for approx 1 day. Then it came back. When I went back to the backup right after the clean install, it worked great for a couple of weeks again. I swear MS is putting some timed nukes on all my installs lol.

Since you already tried all those commands (They did nothing for me either), you should consider doing a clean install, or uninstalling your antivirus and then try restoring the backup. If you are SOL with the current backup you have, you might want to backup all the files you need somewhere safe, and reinstall windows. Then make a proper backup of your win drive with something other than windows I guess (Acronis true image works wonders for me), and pray it doesn't happen again further down the road. I thought about going back to Win 7, which has worked perfectly for 3+ years when this bug wouldn't leave me alone, but I am sure the second I do that MS is gonna release a fix. It is taking an awfully long time though, and it seems to be pretty common.. And nothing official on it from MS kinda makes me wonder if they are even looking into it :/

Thanks for that information. It's grimly comforting to know I'm not the only one. I too am considering going back to W7--but the time involvled gives me a headache.
I did a system restore via shift restart and after a couple of tries seem to have succeeded in restoring to my 'first critical update' of 1.10.15. It has given me access of sorts to the start menue but is playing havoc with Kapersky ant-virus--ie when I try to start Kapersky it cuts out. Still trying to fix that and other associated problems. Also, having restored I then got a BSOD with the message "system_thread_exception_not_handled". Restarted and so far running. Windows 10 now feels like a four wheel vehicle runnning with one wheel missing. Lopsided, unsteady, and almost unusable--definitly unsafe. I regret having upgraded (it feels like a downgrade) from 7. HAving said all that my wife's pc running on 10 seems fine.

Get Shell Ex View. It gives you a list of Extensions running on your Computer and you can choose to disable or enable them based on your choice. Hide all the Windows Extensions cause you don't want to be messing with those and then disable all the 3rd party Extensions. See if the Task Bar works then. IF it does, Great! You can then start enabling the extensions one by one and check which one had the problem. If it still does not work, Sorry but my knowledge is limited.

Hope it helps and if it works thank Halasz for this, he's the one who helped with a similar problem.

pixflix said:

I did a clean install of w10 from w7 a couple of months ago and everything has been running fine until about a week ago since when I've not been able open the start menue. Reading through other posts on line with the same problem has not provided a solution so far. I've ran the DISM/Online/Cleanup-Image/Restor Health and that "completed suucessfully" Then ran a fsc/scannow and that "did not find an integrity violations".
I've tried to do a system restore but it fails saying a fil;e is preventing it, maybe the anti-virus.
It's driving me nuts and if anyone ccan suggest a solution I'd be most grateful.
Thanks

1. Open Windows PowerShell as Administrator
A. Right click Start button
B. Choose Command prompt (Admin)
C. Key in Powershell in the black window and hit Enter

2. Paste the following command in the Administrator: Windows PowerShell window and press Enter key:
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}
3. Wait for PowerShell to execute and complete the command. Ignore the few errors (in red color) that may pop up.


Hope that works for you as well

Nu2Win10 said:

1. Open Windows PowerShell as Administrator
A. Right click Start button
B. Choose Command prompt (Admin)
C. Key in Powershell in the black window and hit Enter

2. Paste the following command in the Administrator: Windows PowerShell window and press Enter key:
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}
3. Wait for PowerShell to execute and complete the command. Ignore the few errors (in red color) that may pop up.


Hope that works for you as well

I tried this too, to no avail. The only fix I found was to leave this OS behind until MS does some proper fixing. Running a OS where this happens is unacceptable for me, after the 3rd clean install I was only waiting for it to happen again. The moment it did I upgraded to windows 7 again, and everything is back to working perfectly.

I had exactly the same , I error checked my main C: drive which is a Samsung SSD, Windows reported that it had found some errors and it needed to be rebooted to correct them. I rebooted the PC and the check disk did it's repairs and it booted back in to Windows. I noticed straight away that the start menu had stopped working and when I opened Windows Explorer or did anything within it (like right click properties) or any settings windows like control panel it would take for ever. Opening programs like Internet Explorer work fine.

I have tried System Restoring to before I did the drive repair and sfc /scannow and Dism/Online/Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth but I still had the problem. The SFC found errors and corrected them but still no Start Menu.

I do a full True image back up weekly so I rolled back one week and stupidly did another check drive for errors and exactly the same happened, I also tried an in place upgrade (Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade) but as soon as the system booted after the upgrade the start menu did not work the same as before the upgrade.

What I did in the end is roll back 2 weeks and I have not done a check drive for errors and it's been ok ever since for 2 weeks, fingers crossed.

I did find a few posts about opening up a new user account, I did this and on the new account I had a start menu and the system opearated as normal. So if it's going to be a major reinstall how about opening a new user account, transferring all your files in to it and see if that works.

I'm sure MS will sort this out soon as there are many posts about it.

Cheers

Tony

tonymarcus said:

I had exactly the same , I error checked my main C: drive which is a Samsung SSD, Windows reported that it had found some errors and it needed to be rebooted to correct them. I rebooted the PC and the check disk did it's repairs and it booted back in to Windows. I noticed straight away that the start menu had stopped working and when I opened Windows Explorer or did anything within it (like right click properties) or any settings windows like control panel it would take for ever. Opening programs like Internet Explorer work fine.

I have tried System Restoring to before I did the drive repair and sfc /scannow and Dism/Online/Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth but I still had the problem. The SFC found errors and corrected them but still no Start Menu.

I do a full True image back up weekly so I rolled back one week and stupidly did another check drive for errors and exactly the same happened, I also tried an in place upgrade (Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade) but as soon as the system booted after the upgrade the start menu did not work the same as before the upgrade.

What I did in the end is roll back 2 weeks and I have not done a check drive for errors and it's been ok ever since for 2 weeks, fingers crossed.

I did find a few posts about opening up a new user account, I did this and on the new account I had a start menu and the system opearated as normal. So if it's going to be a major reinstall how about opening a new user account, transferring all your files in to it and see if that works.

I'm sure MS will sort this out soon as there are many posts about it.

Cheers

Tony

Creating a new user does work for some time, but the same thing happens there after around a week or two. I have tried every fix out there, and nothing helps permanently. I got fed up waiting for MS to fix it after over a month having this issue. Nothing official from them whatsoever, all the posts about it seem to go unnoticed. Although win 10 was for the most part a step in the right direction, using it like it is now, literally a ticking bomb, is more than I can get used to. Windows 7 doesn't feel like too much of a downgrade in terms of usability considering how much more stable it is.