Windows 10: Problems with the Start Menu not opening

Hi!

I've looked through and ran various troubleshooters I was able to find regarding the Start Menu which refuses to open since I upgraded from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10. Needless to say, none of them worked, so here I am.

The problem, however, runs deeper than just the Start Menu. Basically, everything on the taskbar that's not a pinned program, doesn't work. I can right-click the task bar just fine and the menu opens and I have the options to open the Control Panel, Task Manager, Power Shell etc. However, right-clicking any of the pinned programs does nothing. On my other systems, if I do that I get some options (e.g. if I right-click Visual Studio, I get a menu which enables me to open one of the recent solutions). I know there is an option that I need to set up to enable this feature, and I have it enabled, but the context menu that should display this simply doesn't open. Consequently, I can't pin any new programs to the taskbar, or un-pin old ones.

Furthermore, one of the tutorials suggested I try enabling and then disabling a full screen start menu through settings. However, I noticed that no matter what I do, the system won't remember that I toggled the full screen start menu button. I set it to ON, exit settings, re-enter settings, and it shows as being OFF again.

Next, clicking the date and time on the taskbar should open up a monthly calendar. Well, not for me. The calendar is completely unresponsive. Right-clicking the notification in the tray shows the option to open the action center, but the action center doesn't open.

Any ideas on what I can do? Are there any logs that might shed light on what's gone wrong?

:)

 

Troubleshoot problems opening the Start menu or Cortana

a Microsoft tech did that to my last laptop and I had to use the user name TEST. I could not log out of it, couldn't log into my original user because it said it was already in use...

Creating a user is NOT the answer. I'm on a new PC now and just started having the same trouble with the start again...it's unreal this problem hasn't been fixed

 

Troubleshoot problems opening the Start menu or Cortana

To MMMSobo

I'm glad this has worked for you too, all I can tell you is that my tech bloke told me that whereas before shutting down your PC did the work of "tidying up" your PC with "Windows 10" you have to do a restart about once a week. I've been doing it to mine
for some weeks now & it has not failed me.

What a pity that Microsoft cannot tell people to do this when someone away from Microsoft can? I also have to say though that the tech people I use are very good.

By the way, this restart should be done regularly at least once a week

 

Looks like I'm not the only one having start menu issues:

Start button right clicking on taskbar icons suddenly does not work - Windows 10 Forums
Start menu, search, and right clicking taskbar doesn't work - Windows 10 Forums (less severe, because restart fixes it)

Someone give us a hand? *Smile

 

You could try downloading shexview and disabling all non-ms context menu entries as this is often a cause of right click weirdness.

For your start menu problem though I'd create a new user account and see if things works there. If that doesn't work then a repair install is easy and only takes half an hour or so (you get to keep all your non store programs and data etc).

Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade - Windows 10 Forums

 

lx07 nothing worked. Same thing as before.

 

I fixed it.

The problem was that Administrators did not have access to

C:\Users\MY_USERNAME\AppData\Local\Packages

Would have been SOOOO much easier if there was a friggin' LOG somewhere!!!

So much for generic "fixes". Total bollocks.