Windows 10: "Critical error: Start menu and Cortana aren't working"

Hey, I upgraded to Windows 10 on my laptop last night from 8.1 and it had been working fine this morning. However in the afternoon I got a notification that there had been a driver failure and I should restart to repair it. Ever since I have though I've been having difficulties. After I log in I'm stuck on a black screen with only the cursor visible. If you leave it for about 10 minutes eventually the desktop appears, however I'm prompted with the error message in the title and the task bar hasn't loaded. If you try and click on the task bar you eventually get the pop up "Microsoft Windows: the application is not responding" and it gives me the option to end process which does nothing. I'm unable to access control panel, I can use ctrl + alt + delete, however I can't launch task manager.
Booting in safe mode I don't get the critical error, however aside from that the situation is identical. I've tried resetting the PC, performing a system restore to before the update, and start-up repair,all to no avail.
I'm completely out of ideas, if anyone could give me any help I'd be very grateful! Any other info needed just ask!

:)

 

windows 10

A critical error cames on the screen saying.. "Start menu and cortana aren't working" and the window (bottom left) won't work, HELP!

 

Is there a fix for this? Critical error involving Cortana.

How do you correct this: "Critical Error. Start menu and Cortana aren't working. We'll try to fix it next time you sign in.

 

Until microsoft comes up with right fix, restart and then disable cortana. If it still keeps doing that, try with different windows ID if you have any other. Good luck

 

Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately I don't have access to any of the settings, so I'm not sure I'm able to disable Cortana or create new user profiles.

I logged on again today after having left it off for about 16 hours and upon logging in I was met with a dialog box on a black screen:

"RunDLL
There was a problem starting WSClient.dll
WSClient.dll is not a valid win32 application"
and an ok button which when clicked returns me to the black screen.

What does this mean and what should I do now?

 

I ended up calling Microsoft. They took control of my machine. They gave me a new user account, all seemed to work. They called back 2 days later and re-downloaded windows 10 for Home. Right now all is OK. I got my User name back. It was a very frustrating few days, As an aside technician said it was a very common problem and the new download eliminated the issue. This is what happens when one is one of the first to try new technology. I should have waited 6-8 months before I installed. Everything seems fine now and I do like Windows 10. I hope it lasts