UPDATE: June 21, 2016 – Microsoft has released a free repair tool for the Windows 10 START menu. You can read very brief explanation and download it here.
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It was a dark and stormy nighty in April when I installed Windows 10 build 10041 (on the fast ring) and the START button stopped working… ok enough fun. If you have installed a recent Windows 10 build you may find that the START button and all of the modern apps either do nothing or error out with messages about .NET or PARENTAL CONTROLS.
In my case I just installed a free START menu utility (I like START 8 or CLASSIC SHELL) that you might have install on Windows 8, and waited for Microsoft to release the next build of Windows 10 that I hoped would be installed automatically as I am on the FAST RING. It did not because Microsoft changes Windows Update to be a ‘Modern App’ which means it will not run. Soooo, I thought was pretty smart to just download the build 10074 ‘.EBD’ upgrade file from a site and run through the conversion to .ISO and then do an in-place upgrade (which just means run SETUP from the DVD and tell it to upgrade). That did work… for 3 days. This morning my START menu was dead again, AAARRRG!
Microsoft needs to get its Application developer jobs to fix this but until they do, here are solutions that have worked for us:
The I found the fix:
Thank you UHLIK from THIS thread on the Microsoft Forum after reading THIS thread on the forum.
Another fix for the The Start Menu Does Not Work problem is:
UPDATED: August 19, 2015: A third fix I have used successfully is:
A forth fix I found came directly from Microsoft Partner support:
If none of these fix the Start Button, you can try our advanced solution to the Windows 10 Start Button not working, which has solved the issue for me twice already this month and you can read about it here.
If you have had enough, you can just give up and REFRESH you machine.
This will reinstall Windows 10 but it will keep all of your files (Documents, Pictures…) but it will kill all of the programs that have been installed. Everything that is dead will be in C:\WINDOWS.OLD so you can fish out anything that is missing, but you will have to reinstall your programs, like Microsoft Office.
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I tried all fixes and nothing worked I tried the fourth fix again and noticed the error said the firewall was not enabled so after I went into control panel and went to firewall and turned it on. Almost right after I clicked the button action center popped up on the side of the screen which was also not working.. Tried the start menu and that finally worked. However cortana still was not working it gave me a search the web bar instead of the cortana bar. So I tried fix 4 again and rebooted and signed in. Tapped the search bar and cortana initializd again.
So make sure to actually pay attention to the red errors that the firewall is not off.
Thank! The key is enable windows firewall to restore start menu & task-bar again successfully.
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! I am glad I could help!
Get-AppXPackage : Access is denied.
Access is denied.
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopm ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Get-AppxPackage], UnauthorizedAccessException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.UnauthorizedAccessException,Microsoft.Windows.Appx.PackageManager.Commands.GetApp
xPackageCommand
^^^
I get this instead on running 4th fix. nothing worked.
Is this because I didn't run powershell in admin mode? I can't even get to admin mode. I can't right click the powershell on the taskbar.
You definitely need to run that command with Admin rights:
If you need to bring up a POWERSHELL window but cannot right click on the START BUTTON, you can press CTRL+ALT+DEL, select TASK MANAGER, click MORE DETAILS, click FILE menu, click CREATE NEW TASK, type in POWERSHELL.EXE and select the CREATE THIS TASK WITH ADMINISTRATIVE PRIVILEGES .
Just to update everything finished and I rebooted, now the problem is different, the Microsoft Edge icon has completely disappeared from the task bar, whereas before it was there just invisible, the start menu still does not work but this time does not throw the critical error message, instead clicking the start button sets the mouse pointer to the blue spinning wheel for a few seconds and then nothing happens at all after that :/
Have you tried the four potential fixes in this post?
Tried all of the fixes and no joy yet one of them is still running so fingers crossed, to try the powershell fix I did however have to load powershell as admin via a command in a regular powershell session ( load powershell from command prompt then in powershell type Start-Process PowerShell –Verb RunAs and press Enter) because right clicking icons in the taskbar does nothing when this problem is happening for me, even Microsoft Edge browser icon disappears.
Hope they get this fully fixed soon, it only happens on my HP laptop but my custom built desktop at home works fine never had this problem and someone I know has Win 10 on their laptop with no problems yet either.
what happen to me was , when i deleted the windows.old file from the previous OS using genie cleaner, this start menu on windows 10 stop appearing , i tried all the solutions available on youtube but nothing solve it, please help
Have you tried the four potential solutions in THIS article?
the 3rd solution works , when adding new user, but still its partially fix, the menu doesn't appear properly the windows apps doesnt appear in the right side, also windows search doesnt work, but this wasn't the fix im looking for i need to fix my current profile, but the fix you mention above can't fix it please give me another solution please sir.
You can try installing the latest build which just came out a few days ago: http://microsoft-news.com/download-windows-10-build-10532-iso/
When I type "ren %windir%\System32\AppLocker\Plugin*.* *.bak" into the admin command console windows just returns an error reading "The system cannot find the file specified."
I have noted that in my release version this path does not exist either. I am unsure if the path has been changed in the release, if this folder just does not exist in the release OR the folder is created periodically by Windows 10 and so it may not always exist.
Ya know, your post give my hope, but unfortunately when I Enter command: ren %windir%\System32\AppLocker\Plugin*.* *.bak, it says "The system cannot find the file specified.
And yes, I ran as admin
I appreciate the frustration as I have 'been there'. I just added two more potential fixes to the bottom of this post so please try them and let me know if they work for you.
Both didn't fix it. The first one said ''not found'' and the second one initiated but the start menu still did not work.
I appreciate the frustration as I have 'been there'. I just added two more potential fixes to the bottom of this post so please try them and let me know if they work for you.
right click the start menu and open task manager
scroll down until you find process "windows explorer"
restart windows explorer
This worked for me too! Thanks a bunch.
This is the only thing in all my searching that's worked for me!! 100% recommend trying this first because it's totally harmless otherwise and impossible to mess up.
If you're having trouble changing the service to auto start, you can do it from the command line. Right click start menu, select Command Prompt (Admin) and run:
sc config AppIdSvc start=auto
Hello, the two ways of fixing the problem didnt work on my lab i have hp envy m4 1050la, i tried many things but the same, i lost my cortana and microsoft edge, this fix ren %windir%\System32\AppLocker\Plugin*.* *.bak is replying that the system cannot find the specific file.
please i need your help because i dont want to re install windows
thanks
I appreciate the frustration as I have 'been there'. I just added two more potential fixes to the bottom of this post so please try them and let me know if they work for you.