Start button stopped working

Xilnik · 29 Mar 2017

I made some changes to my network settings in an attempt to determine what was preventing my desktop system from sleeping. I was restarting my system after each change, and now my Start button has stopped working. Microsoft Edge crashed immediately when opened one time prior to this happening, but I do not know whether the two are related.

I did An In-Place Upgrade Repair Install yesterday to fix an issue that cropped up with Windows Defender as a result of following the guide to Perform a Clean Boot in Windows 10 to Troubleshoot Software Conflicts.

Have other people been having more issues with their systems since this month's set of security updates? I have re-installed Windows 10 a dozen times or more in the past 2-3 weeks, including two clean installs on one of my systems.

EDIT: Chose to clean install Windows on this machine to see if it fixes my sleep when idle issues/user profile corruption.

spunk · 30 Mar 2017

Revert the changes in the Clean Boot.
Go to Start/Search and type msconfig and press enter. Under the General tab, select Normal boot and restart the computer.
If you want to still use Clean Boot, the go the Services tab click Enable All Services, then put a check box in Hide All Microsoft services, now, to do a clean boot, choose Disable All. This will disable all unnecessary services except the Microsoft ones (ie) Start Button, Edge etc. restart the computer.

Xilnik · 30 Mar 2017

spunk said:

If you want to still use Clean Boot, the go the Services tab click Enable All Services, then put a check box in Hide All Microsoft services, now, to do a clean boot, choose Disable All. This will disable all unnecessary services except the Microsoft ones (ie) Start Button, Edge etc. restart the computer.

That was how I used clean boot initially. Then I did a diagnostic boot, and that broke Windows Defender. After re-enabling services and startup programs, Defender was still broken, so I had to do a repair install after sfc and DISM failed to fix it. Clean Boot Troubleshooting Caused Windows Defender 0x80070426 - Solved

Xilnik · 30 Mar 2017

After a clean install, I'm again having issues with my taskbar. Now right clicking on icons just results in the waiting circle with no dialog list showing up. I was trying to right click on the file explorer icon to access some of my quick access/pinned items, but I could not do so. It is exceedingly frustrating how easily my Microsoft profile gets corrupted in Windows 10.

spunk · 30 Mar 2017

Ok now do SFC /scannow and if that fails the DISM command you did previously, Then SFC /scannow again. If this fails, I would consider doing a clean install

Xilnik · 30 Mar 2017

'SFC /scannow' found no integrity violations.
'Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth' failed to fix the issue.
'SFC /scannow' found no integrity violations.

Clean installing for the second time in 24 hours ...

Xilnik · 30 Mar 2017

Clean install has me up and running as well as I was prior to issues starting again. We'll see how long that lasts. One issue: Microsoft Edge has lost all my favorites.

Edit: recovered my favorites (minus a few) from a backup saved from Edge Manage a few days ago. I re-added the missing favorites and saved a new backup.

Xilnik · 31 Mar 2017

I am now running the release preview of the Creators Update. So far, my system seems more stable. I will continue to monitor and mark this solved if it remains stable for the next week.

Below is superfluous info:

I had no issues with the Anniversary Update until the March 14, 2017 updates rolled out. Something in those updates hates my Microsoft user account and my systems in general. My laptop shut down last night after video editing finished encoding a file, and I booted up this morning to the Windows Defender 0x800b0100 error. Using Troubleshooting through Control Panel on any computer problem failed immediately with an error. I didn't write down what the error was, but I encountered this last week after a clean install and finalizing all Windows Updates including the updates from March 14 and ended up doing a repair install to fix it. I did a repair install today, and my laptop is up and running again with the Anniversary Update. Updates are slowly installing, so I expect to again have problems within a few days when it catches up to the March 14th updates.

The laptop is my main system I use for work, so I do not want to put an Insider build on it. I will just have to hope it is among the systems that the Creators Update hits first or that I can manually download the update the first day as I did with the Anniversary Update.