Sysprep Windows 10 Start Menu search is blank

SeattleITguy · 19 May 2016

Hello everyone,

I was following the Tenforums.com Windows 10 Image - Customize in Audit Mode with Sysprep guide, which I found to be an amazing guide.

My goal is to have a Windows 10 Pro x64 sysprep image from the Hyper-V VM, exactly as in the guide.

Anyways I had everything going smooth - I was about to Generalize the image and realized the Start Menu stopped returning results, instead just showing a blank search.

After some frustration and reluctance I went back to the checkpoint at the very beginning (as indicated in the guide). The Start Menu still showed up blank.

Reinstalled the VM in Hyper-V using different names and different VHD files but all resulted in the same error.

Created the VM in VMware Workstation 12 and and started the Sysprep process with Windows 10 in VMware. The Start Menu is still blank.

Uninstalled Hyper-V and reinstalled Hyper-V but that didn't help.

I've done the basic troubleshooting steps too:

Reboot system (Host and Guest systems multiple times)
Verified service Windows Search is running (I restarted the service as well)
Rebuilt Index
Restarted Cortana and Windows Explorer
Re-registered Cortana

I've tried Googling my heart out to no avail. Couldn't even find an image with a similar problem. I've attached a snippet of the issue below.

Note: This is only in Audit Mode. When I let the Windows install complete, the Start Menu works again. I'll try completing the imaging process and load the Sysprep image and see if the Start Menu functionality comes back unless someone has a better idea or similar experience?

Sysprep Windows 10 Start Menu search is blank-w10_start_menu_blank.jpg

Kari · 19 May 2016

If this happens in Audit Mode, being signed in with the built-in admin account before any actual user accounts have been created, you can try this workaround (quote from another thread):

Kari said:

A fast fix you could try first, if it does not work we can try something else:

In Windows, the hidden file UsrClass.dat stores quite a number of user account related information. In cases when the profile seems not be functioning properly, a simple reset (delete / recreate) of this file might in most cases solve the issue.

Open File Explorer, type %localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows in addressbar and hit Enter to open the AppData\Local folder. Select View menu in Explorer, enable Hidden items. Now delete the UsrClass.dat file and reboot.

When rebooted and the UsrClass.dat file is not found Windows will create a new one. Check if everything works, post here if not.

When in Audit Mode and you reboot, Windows automatically returns to Audit Mode. You can now test if Search works, and if yes, run sysprep.

Kari