Windows 10: Windows 10 database & tiles in start menu.

I'm using a insider edition of Windows 10. I am building a customized version installation USB . However I am going to my own tiles and do away with the files list. What I would like to know is where are the shortcut files stored so they show up on the on the start menu? How do I nest those tiles 3 to 4 deep? I would like tiless with the name of nch/video/program name, how is this done? Please show examples! Thank you, John

:)

 

Start Menu corruption: "Tile database is corrupt"

Since updating Windows 10 to version 1803, I noticed that at the bottom of my Start Menu there is a category "Other" and one item under that category listed as "ms-resource:appDisplayName". When I click on it, it opens a page in Windows Store where I can check for app updates. I figured this is not quite right, so I downloaded and executed Microsoft's Start Menu troubleshooter. It came back with "tile database is corrupt" and "not fixed".

So I then researched and attempted some manual fixes on the tile database, but no success. This involved creating a new user account, and then copying and replacing the corrupted database with a clean database from the newly created user account. For whatever reasons, that did not change anything.

I have also successfully executed Dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth. And sfc /scannow reports no integrity violations.

I do not have any other issues with the Start Menu, so I think I can live with it as-is. But if there is a relatively easy way to repair it, I'd like to try.

I understand I could do a reset of my Windows 10 install, but that is more than I want to do to address this relatively minor issue.

Thanks for any info.

 

Start menu tiles are missing their icons

I faced the same situation and was able to use a solution quite similar to

Chad W's below. The main difference being that the packages did not need to be reinstalled.

The source of this information came from an article by
Dennis Faas, detailed to the extreme and very clear. The article is at

https://www.infopackets.com/news/9820/how-fix-windows-10-start-menu-not-working.

The basics, because
Ravendarkhart619's answer as well as the article explain the mechanics per se. After managing to fix it, the tile area will be blank, in case you *really* want to keep your layout.

Using both an administrative Command prompt and an administrative Powershell prompt.
This procedure is not for the faint of heart.

Prepare

On the DOS command prompt:

• taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F
  -- Forcefully kills the Explorer.exe process.
• net stop tiledatamodelsvc
  -- Stops the Tile Data service
  

On the Powershell window:

• cd C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\TileDataLayer\ -- it contains the Database folder which is what needs to be rebuilt

Clear the Start Menu database

At this point all you need to do is to delete (make a backup first of course) the contents of the database, then manually rebuild it. Removing the contents can be harder than it seems, as the files are busy.

This is what I managed to do, some stuff may be superfluous. Also, the commands I'm typing may have syntax errors as I typed many times and I'm not sure which ones were the correct ones. The idea is there however.

• mkdir database-backup (or whatever)

A simple MOVE command won't work. I was unable to do the move on the Command Prompt itself.

• get-childitem .\database\ | Move-Item -destination .\database-backup\ -- This (again, may have a small syntax error) will move the database files to the backup folder. Make sure the
  Tile Data Model service is not running (see step 2)

Before proceeding, make sure the .\database\ folder is empty. It took me more than one attempt, particularly with the main database file,
EDB.chk

Prepare the apps

This is where this method differs from Chad W's, as it doesn't require the apps to be reinstalled.
The gist is to "touch" the apps ever-so-lightly to avoid changing them yet making Start think they did change, so they are added to the Start menu again.

The same process has to be done twice, once for the Windows Apps and another for the EXE programs, whose icons/links are still on the old-style Start menu.

For the first, the firewall has to be disabled, then the
DevelopmentMode for all the apps will be turned off (which is/should be already off: this is the light "touch") and afterwards the firewall enabled again. The firewall being off is critical.

• NetSh Advfirewall set allprofiles state off

• Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}
  
  • This one takes a while and some packages may not be updated if there are newer ones already installed.

• NetSh Advfirewall set allprofiles state on

Rebuild the App icon databases

At this point, the database is ready to be rebuilt. This will happen when the
Tile Data service is running and
explorer.exe is running.

On the Command Prompt (not the Powershell one)

• net start tiledatamodelsvc
  
• start explorer.exe

Wait for a few seconds, maybe a couple of minutes.
The start menu is slow to update. At first, it will be totally empty.
I repeatedly restarted the Tile Data service and
Explorer out of frustration but after a [seems a long] while, icons on the Start menu started appearing one by one, they will show as "New" and eventually all the Apps will be there.

Add the Old Start style icons

At this point, the Start menu should have your Apps and you can start placing tiles in place.
You should at this point, just to make sure they properly show, the Live Tile works, can be resized etc.

If all is well, then now the old Start menu folder needs to be "touched" as well.
As soon as something happens within it, the new Start menu will scan for changes and add them.

• cd C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
• Copy any icon somewhere else. For example, copy Start Menu\Programs\Windows Accessories\Paint to Start\Menu\Programs -- copy ".\windows accessories\Paint.lnk" .\
  • I used an Explorer window instead. Not only easier but maybe Explorer may trigger the update.
• Delete that new file, it if you wish.

Once this is done, the icons for the contents of this folder will start appearing on the Start menu. Again, will be very slow, one by one.

I hope this helps.

 

Windows 10 Start Menu all apps / tiles missing

So I woke my computer up from sleep last night and this is what I was welcomed with:




All of a sudden my start menu had no apps listed and no live tiles to speak of. So I did my googleing and I found this microsoft answer page: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...0-b988cd6da49a

I tried every step in their. After all said and done, I got installed programs to show up, but the live tiles that usually show to the right did not come back. I was ok with that, thinking I would work on this today and find a solution to that problem.

I just woke up the computer again from sleep and the start menu is blank AGAIN. Before this started happening last night, I have not installed any new software nor has windows ran any updates.

I'm at a loss. I tried system recovery and to roll back to a few days prior, but I keep getting an error after recovery is attempted stating that windows recovery wasn't able to fully complete due to a certain file (i can retry recovery and post picture of error if needed).

So any suggestions on whats my next step? I thought maybe I had a malware issue, but II have avast and malware antibytes installed and they showed no hits when the scans where run.

Any suggestions or guidance is greatly appreciated. Hope you all have a Great Turkey Day!

PS, I have to work today from 4pm to 6am, so If I do not reply right away I apologize.