Start Menu and Cortana Problems again!!!!

Hello Again Guys,

I love Windows 10 but for me it's been the most unreliable O/S I've used and I go back to Windows 95 days. Microsoft took away the start menu we all loved in Windows 8, after 2 years we finally get it back but boy is it buggy.

Basically I have had start menu problems in the past but to cut a long story short I restored my PC back to a weekly image I do with True Image and the problem did not return, I installed Threshold 2 last Saturday and my PC ran fine, I used it last night without changing anything or getting any problems but I switched it on today and the first thing I notice is that some of the icons in the system tray which I set to be shown were hidden, I corrected that straight away.

Then I clicked on my windows icon to access the start menu and it's now not showing also Cortana does not work, apart from that the PC is normal. I can open the Calculator and Edge modern apps as I have the shortcuts on the desktop.

I have run SFC/ SCANNOW in safe mode and in normal mode and it tells me I have errors but they can not be fixed.

I'm so fed up with it now, unless I can find a fix I'm just going to live with it, I can access my start menu folders from file explorer and most of my most used programs have short cuts on the desktop.

Anyone else having similar problems and know of a fix?

Thanks

Tony

Just to mention from the beginning Start menu in Windows 10 is better then Windows 8 which might be confusing with Windows 7 which is start menu most liked.

Did you try running this at Admin Command Prompt, copy and paste it in then press enter, let it finish
Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

Same command prompt run sfc again
sfc /scannow

reboot after, let us know what happens from the commands.

Ok I will try that thank you. Just an update I opened another account on this PC and the start menu and Cortana work on the other account so it's the dreading account corruption which I have been reading about, last time I had a similar problem nothing would fix it, not even an inplace reinstall the only way I could get it back was to roll the pc back a week.

I difference between last time and this time was last time opening any settings menu or file explorer would take ages.

Thanks

Tony

Slow PC is another can be related to other causes or issues. User Account reasons i am not familiar why this would solve it.
Were you updated to the new build 10586 yet ? Was through windows update.

Yes I updated to 10586.3 via windows update, all was ok from Saturday to today :-(

jds63 said:

Slow PC is another can be related to other causes or issues. User Account reasons i am not familiar why this would solve it.
Were you updated to the new build 10586 yet ? Was through windows update.

tonymarcus said:

Yes I updated to 10586.3 via windows update, all was ok from Saturday to today :-(

Try command prompt commands and first see how it goes under that account.

Yep just doing that now

jds63 said:

Try command prompt commands and first see how it goes under that account.

tonymarcus said:

Yep just doing that now

Alright let me know outcome and if get any errors from the DISM command as SFC did not fix files.

The DISM ends with the following errors:-

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.10586]
(c) 2016 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\WINDOWS\system32>sfc /scannow
Beginning system scan. This process will take some time.
Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.
Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files but was unable to fix some
of them. Details are included in the CBS.Log windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For
example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. Note that logging is currently not
supported in offline servicing scenarios.
C:\WINDOWS\system32>Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth
Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.10586.0
Image Version: 10.0.10586.0
[==========================100.0%==========================]
Error: 0x800f081f
The source files could not be found.
Use the "Source" option to specify the location of the files that are required t
o restore the feature. For more information on specifying a source location, see
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=243077.
The DISM log file can be found at C:\WINDOWS\Logs\DISM\dism.log
C:\WINDOWS\system32>

jds63 said:

Alright let me know outcome and if get any errors from the DISM command as SFC did not fix files.

I had same problem after doing a clean install of the new build 10586.3.
Suggest you download the correct ISO here http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/techbench


After the download completes, right click the ISO and select Mount. In explorer whatever the drive number of the mounted ISO is use this command in Admin Command Prompt change the X to the mounted drive letter.

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /source:WIM:X:\Sources\Install.wim:1 /LimitAccess

If this is successful rerun this command at same open prompt

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

Then same command prompt run sfc again
sfc /scannow

Can reboot after, but let us know if can not fix remains.