Windows 10: Reset Start Layout in Windows 10

Hello ikawuf, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

I'm not sure what you mean by It does pretty scary when I run UWP Apps. Please give more details.

 

I think the comma makes you confused, sorry, my bad
It does pretty scary when I run UWP Apps but there's nothing on my Taskbar, Task View, and Alt + Tab.

 

I'm not sure what you meant by "pretty scary" for what it's doing.

 

It does looks pretty scary when I run UWP Apps, but there's nothing on my Taskbar, Task View, and Alt + Tab.

sorry, my english is bad, I'm not really good in english.

 

Ah, ok. You might see if restarting the computer again may sort it for you.

 

Hello Brink,

My start menu tile layout got crashed after upgrade to the latest Windows 10 Home lnsider Preview
Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.16237.1001]

I tried all your steps with dual local administrator account, but there is no TileDataLayer folder under my %LocalAppData%

I also tried Export-StartLayout and Import-StartLayout in the elevated Windows PowerShell Command Prompt as well as made as per guide in Reinstall and Re-register Apps in Windows 10 Windows 10 Performance Maintenance Tutorials to noavail.

I am not using Start Menu and Tiles much, mostly use Win+R and command prompt window, but I dont like inconsistent way of Microsoft doing UI. A simple menu layout fix requires lots of tweaks and tricks.

Could you please look into the problem again and give me some hints?

Thank you in advance.

 

Hello HollowKnight, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

If you copy and paste the path below into the address bar of File Explorer and press Enter, does it open the TileDataLayer folder?

*Arrow %LocalAppData%\TileDataLayer

 

Yes
C:\Users\nguyenc\AppData\Local\TileDataLayer <-- This is user, I want to fix
C:\Users\NO02\AppData\Local\TileDataLayer <-- This is Local Administrator user
C:\Users\NO01\AppData\Local <- - This is Temporary Local Administrator User, I created with Intention to copy TileDataLayer\Database to C:\Users\nguyenc\AppData\Local\TileDataLayer. There is NO Folder named TileDataLayer, though NO01's Start Menu Tiles appear and work normally.

I could run as NO01
Export-StartLayout -Path Layout.xml but I dont have GPO Edit to import it to nguyenc, because I am using Windows 10 Home Edition.

Thank you

 

Odd. You might create another temp account to see if it may have the needed folder after signing in to it.

 

I've done as you suggested but there is no TileDataLayer folder.

 

In that case, you might give a repair install a try to fix this without losing anything.

Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials

 

It's really weird. How MS made Windows a messy trash bin, where their developers can put anywhere pieces of info they'd want to. I am tired of using find + grep to find those files. I've been digging in their technet and other IT Pro forums (now moderated by zero-knowledge guys/gals from anonymous forests in India) but still could not find any useful tips. Needles to say I am 20++ years experienced user of many OSes.

 

This is ridiculous. Why does it have to be so hard to return the start layout of existing users to the default layout or update a custom layout? I have attempted the process describe above. But it didn't work.

In summary, I have created a new user which gets the default layout. Then, using the Administrator account, copied the c:\Users\NewUser\AppData\Local\TileDataLayer\Database folder to the Olduser's TileDataLayer folder. There was no change to the Olduser's start layout.

I am trying to get a handle on how this start layout works and the idiosyncrasies of it. I'm working on deploying Win 10 to a number of systems in a business environment and I want to deploy a customized start layout. But I came across the issue where it is difficult to change the layout of existing users (without deleting the entire user profile).

More detail of what I've done: I created a user called RefUser, and modified the Start Layout. Then used the Export-StartLayout, then the Import-StartLayout cmdlets to set a new default layout. I deleted the profile of Refuser and re-logged on and the RefUser got the new start layout as expected. So that works.

Then I returned the system to the default layout by renaming the file: C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Shell\LayoutModification.xml

I created a user 'NewUser' and this user was created with the default layout. Refuser still had the modified layout. I used the procedure above and the layout did not change. As a guess, From the Admin acct, I renamed the Database folder and didn't replace it. When I log on, the list of all programs on the left has only system tools, the start tiles only has some of the custom layout display. The active tiles are missing.

So I haven't gotten to the bottom of how the the start layout is maintained in the user's profiles. And I don't know how to return the existing users to the default or a new layout.

Any added thoughts would be welcome.

 

Brink - just actually getting around to this, but I realize I don't understand an earlier detail.

Above, I asked and you replied as follows:

OK - here's my missing detail and question - What is the difference between "items on the Start screen ... includ[ing] items pinned to Start" and "any links in the Start menu on the left side"?
Can you show me the kind of thing I will lose ("items on the Start screen ... includ[ing] items pinned to Start") using the technique here?
Just want to know in advance what I might have to re-do later.

Thanks again.

 

Hello glnz, *Smile

Basically, the right side of the Start menu or Start screen is where apps are pinned to Start at. This is what would be reset.

The left side or All Apps, is just the list of installed apps on the PC.