Start Menu/Windows won't work

I've this weird issue with my Start bar, search bar and various Windows related things.

Start Menu - It won't appear at all, can't left click it.
Search Bar - Does nothing at all.
Shortcuts - They function and I can rearrange them but I cannot right click them.

Various windows related things are also being extremely slow or unresponsive, The task manager for example takes ages to appear. Navigating the control panel is fine but the Windows 10 settings area is odd, I can't create a new user(clicking it does nothing) and when I explore the "Start" part of personalization, checking any of the options takes about 30 seconds to register.

I've tried a bunch of cmd/powershell related fixes and got no where but I'm up for anything here, plzhalp.

Have you tried to repair with System File Checker. Here's the tutorial https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2...dows-10-a.html . It should clean up these type of things.

Night Hawk said:

Hello Varph Welcome to the Ten Forums!

The first question I have for you here is did you just see the 10 upgrade take place? If so and it was activated you can forget about keeping the upgrade and if having seen the 10 media created using the Media Creation Tool option and not simply the upgrade through Windows updates option nuke the buggy upgrade to see a nice clean install of 10 go on! The problems you are seeing show the upgrade did not fully install 10 as it should have and is typical of bugged up 10 upgrades!

Been there done that already on several occasions trying to get two desktops and a 7 laptop upgraded to give 10 a good try.
(and also why I maintain a 10/7 dual boot while none of the clean installs has been found buggy to date)

Too bad you didn't see this guide first which can save a lot of headaches contending with "Bugyy" upgrade installs! Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First - Windows 10 Forums

On the 32bit 7 Home Premium laptop here the upgrade saw the Start button gone and no access to the AllApps section as well as the Setting screen being totally blank! Fortunately I was already expecting to see the upgrade replaced immediately with a full Clean Install of 10 before making the change from the 32bit to 64bit 10 Home edition!

No I've had my Windows 10 for quite some time now. I took appart my PC and put it back together and since then it broke but I don't know why/how it happened.

Night Hawk said:

When you say took your pc apart did that included unplugging drives and hardwares from the board like swapping some out? I'm trying to get an idea on why you would be seeing this if you had followed the original upgrade with a clean install since something was changed. The upgrade bug would be the expected end result with the fast replacement install fix there.

If you had unintentionally switched drive cables between drives in some way you wouldn't have run into any of this. I know that from the 10/7 dual boot here where I switched cables to see the 10 drive previously second become the first in the bios drive listing. Yet the Disk Management shows 7 as Disk 2 and 10 as Disk 3? I suspect the two Sata 3 ports as being reserved for Disk 0 and 1 there!

Literally everything in the PC was swapped out and back in at one point. Actually the sata cables might not have went into the same slots as what they are now, I shall have to try that tomorrow.

OK that did nothing, nor did the scannow or DISM things.

I would try a in place upgrade/repair next. Here's the tutorial Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade .

Night Hawk,
My wife's computer got an "upgrade" 10 install from 8.1 and has been glitchy, freezy and generally slow ever since. This computer was purchased in late 2012 and originally came with 8. My non-tech-savvy wife went ahead and did some method unknown to me upgrade to 8.1 and the machine has never been right.

My thought, at this point within the 30 days, is to downgrade back to 8.1 and then do a clean install of 10. I'm thinking this may undo the botched "upgrade" installation, as opposed to just putting bandaids on the thing. I'm new to Windows Land and want to know if this is a good plan, or if I'm simply asking for even more trouble? Computer is:

HP Pavillion g7 Laptop
AMD A8-4500M 1.9GHz with Radeon HD Graphhics
4.00 GB memory

The current 10 version is Build 10240

Thank You,
Gene

windoz said:

Night Hawk,
My wife's computer got an "upgrade" 10 install from 8.1 and has been glitchy, freezy and generally slow ever since. This computer was purchased in late 2012 and originally came with 8. My non-tech-savvy wife went ahead and did some method unknown to me upgrade to 8.1 and the machine has never been right.

My thought, at this point within the 30 days, is to downgrade back to 8.1 and then do a clean install of 10. I'm thinking this may undo the botched "upgrade" installation, as opposed to just putting bandaids on the thing. I'm new to Windows Land and want to know if this is a good plan, or if I'm simply asking for even more trouble? Computer is:

HP Pavillion g7 Laptop
AMD A8-4500M 1.9GHz with Radeon HD Graphhics
4.00 GB memory

The current 10 version is Build 10240

Thank You,
Gene

You don't have to downgrade, just do a clean install. As long as you are activated you are set to reinstall.