Windows 10: Windows 10 Start Menu, metro apps, and taskbar icons not working

I have upgraded to windows 10 from 8.1 and been using it for the last week now with no problems.
Today, during a mandatory update my pc went blue screen and said it had to restart.
Once it restarted it updated and booted fine.
However after the update I realized that my start menu stopped working.
If I press it nothing shows up. It is the same with my search menu.
Also none of my taskbar icons will work like the volume and notifications.


I have searched the internet and tried all the solutions provided like windows powershell and uninstalling antivirus and restarting explorer but nothing seems to work for me.
I can't reformat and clean install at the moment because it's really inconvenient for me and have some important files and big programs that I can't back up.

Can anyone please provide me a solution for this bug?
Is there anyway I can reinstall the last update again manually?
Or if I revert back to win 8.1 would this problem still persist?
I can't afford to lose anything since I am away and need my computer for work.

:)

 

Start botton, notification and cortana icons are not working

Try following the suggested troubleshooting steps here: Windows 10 Start Menu, metro apps, and taskbar icons not working - Windows 10 Forums

 

Start, taskbar and all Windows 10 apps crash and restart when I turn on my PC.

Start menu, taskbar, Cortana and all windows 10 metro apps(and MS Edge too) crash and restart after two minutes of starting my PC.

 

Right click the start button and click on Programs and Features. (It's at the top.)
In the window that opens click on 'View installed updates'
Click on the updates you want to uninstall and Bob's your auntie's live-in lover!

 

BUGGY IS THE WORD! victor Welcome to the Ten Forums! And apparently the initial upgrade "World of Bugs"! Buggy buggy buggy unfortunately is the word! I ran a second upgrade over a "Clean Install of Windows 7" so I wouldn't pick up any buggies from the system registry of the previous versions and still the first upgrade was buggy mainly because as seen often with upgrade installs "Something" either doesn't go on fully or some updates reveals a hidden glitch!

Unfortunately the latest updates just coming out turned things upside down for you where the best possible remedy would be to see a Nice Clean Full Install of 10! That will see 10 go on as reliably as it can be until the patch just released goes on along with other updates 10 will be needing as any just released new version of Windows typically needs to see. Windows 10 - Clean Install - Windows 10 Forums[2]=Installation%20and%20Setup

I did the second upgrade and things did seem to clear up from not even being able to get the software for a few expansion cards(sound, tv tuner/video capture cards) as well as the antivirus to even get half way through the installation of those programs. I was running with that for a good week until I knew it was time to simply say "Clean Install" as I would have anyways!

That will see the Window.old folder created of course as seen with the previous versions going back to Vista where the program folders and the users folder are backed up. All else on the drive is left intact while you will need to review what updates are or will be available for the model you have there at the Acer support site before proceeding in that direction. Eventually if you tried to work with the second upgrade over the first you would eventually run into other potential problems.

The initial step you may see results with would need to be tended to by booting of a usb flash drive if you had made one up for the upgrade to 10 but use the Recovery tools command prompt option to run the "SFC /SCANNOW" command at the dos like prompt if unable to right click on the Start button and open the command prompt(admin) at the bottom of the right click menu that appears to try the System File Checker tool. Second upgrade until clean install or clean install are the two better recommendations for you however.

 

Thank you for that solution teachermark. However it seems like my pc decided to crash into blue screen again during the uninstall process. Good thing it was able to restart fine again with no problems. I think I will have to put off that method for now. I will continue to search for a solution in the meantime.


Thank you for your comment Night Hawk. I am looking forward for a clean install when I have the chance to back up all my files. Right now that is not really an option for me.

 

Well one way to back things up temporarily is to create a new temp folder on the drive to keep things you want and fear would be lost during a clean install. Most often however that would be things you find later in the Windows.old folder which can always see a name change to Windows.Backup or something on that idea. Years back a blogger made that observation.

Here I kept track of just ends up being effected betwen upgrades and the full install just seen to and nothing was lost on the 10 drive except the need to reinstall various programs. If not planning a full drive wipe or planning to do so later you still have the two options available for the upgrade to repair where now you would still need to take the same steps in reinstalling apps all over. Or you can toss a temp full install on in order to work with a fresh system registry where the problem you are having seems to be stemming from.

 

After you have tried EVERYTHING else, do this:
Open regedit.exe
Right click on HKEY_Users and select properties
Make sure that "All Application Packages" exists and has Read Permission
Repeat for HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
Expand HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. Check the subkeys HARDWARE, SAM,SOFTWARE,SYSTEM. Make sure that All Application Packages has the Read permission.
All Fixed

 

I have three Dells (2 Desk & 1 Lap). Had upgraded to Win10 from 8.1 on or about Aug. 1. Yesterday Win10 did update KB3081436 on 1 Desk and Lap, after which the Taskbar icons for Start, Search and New Notifications still appear in Taskbar, but do not open. With this, cannot access Settings, Action Center, Windows Update, Search, etc.

The 3rd Dell Desk had not yet installed the KB and the icons still worked. I went ahead and installed KB3081436 on 3rd Dell, and now have the same problem with icons not working.

I uninstalled the KB in the Dell Lap, rebooted, and the icons still do not work. Ran sfc /scannow, dism /online /cleanup-image /restore health (and checkhealth), and no issues reported. I then did a manual download and install of the

Also ran Fix Problems with Windows Update, System Maintenance, MalwareBytes.

So, I narrowed it to the KB3081436 update of Aug. 11 when the problem started.

Dear Mr. Gates and oh mighty program effects lady, please do I have one number right? And even if you issue another grand update, how am I to get it and install it if I cannot access Windows Update? Why did “uninstall” of the KB3081436 not restore the icons to original state?

Thank you.

 

Solution worked for my three Dells ...

After spending hours searching and trying all of the other crap, I found a post on another forum (NOT Microsoft!).

Open Windows PowerShell with Admin privileges (see Note below).

Copy and paste the following command line at the PowerShell prompt C:\Windows\System32>:

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

Hit Enter and let it run its course, then close PowerShell. No need to re-boot, the changes take effect immediately (but I did re-boot to make sure). Did this on three computers.

Note: Do not use Command prompt (does not recognize command). Get Powershell.exe in Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\, or right click on the Task Bar, then Properties. In the window that opens there is a tab labeled Navigation. This will allow you to change the option to PowerShell instead of a Command prompt. Now you can right click the Start button (Window Pane) and on the Menu List select Windows PowerShell (Admin). Once you're done you can change it back to the default Command prompt. I keep both on my Desktop via Send To.

 

The Update History will immediately show if that is the problem or not! It went on here without even being noticed!





You can always opt to use the "Defer updates" option while that would leave you without the much needed updates to come for not just Windows functions but the features and apps 10 comes with as well as 3rd party programs if you had elected to see those updated along with 10.

Whenever an update trashes Windows unless the upgrade install is "Buggy" as it was here the first time requiring the upgrade to repair second upgrade over the upgrade the alternative all so commonly used is actually the System Restore feature that has been in Windows since Vista to roll back the system registry to see if that will clear things up. How to Do a System Restore of Windows 10

 

i found another method, which did not work for me, but it may be worth a try for smbdy of you too:

taskbar, start menu, cortana not working in Windows 10 (FIX)

Somebody mad a little .bat file with all the steps integrated. For a strange reason i dont have the :
Code: C:\$Windows.~WS\Sources\Windows\sources[/quote] location anymore, and i cant find the install.wim on the USB stick made with "Media Creation Tool", therefore this is not working yet:
Code: DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /source:WIM:X:\Sources\Install.wim:1 /LimitAccess[/quote] So, let me try to summarize what already has been tried without success:

1. Restart the service
2. Restart Explorer.exe
3. Boot in safemode
4. Powershell script 1
5. Powershell script 2
6. Change security leve on UAC
7. DOCB's registry key check
8. The 10Services.bat from kickiteasy

Is there some way to file a bugreport or so in the microsoft world ?

ps: is bthere a way we can join this 2 discussions, since theyre about the same topic ?
Start Menu is not working - Page 5 - Windows 10 Forums

 

They generally don't merge threads. myself Sorry! If the 10 download was saved to the drive in ISO image form you can double click and mount the image as a new virtual dvd drive and browse to the "sources" folder in order to extract a fresh copy of the install.wim file.

You can try anything actually but as I was saying you will likely end up either trying the System Restore in order to back track out of the update where the problem came up and then still attempt an upgrade to repair install just to keep 10 going the way it is or perform the actual problem solver of seeing to a fresh clean install which will solve a great number of other potential could come up issues.

At first that may seem like a real pain but in the long run it can make life quite a bit easier then fending off one headache after another that can pop up out of nowhere!

 

nighthawk, ty for your ideas and tips!

finally my "solution" was to create a new (AD)user. that works w/o problems.
A clean install wasn't really an option in my case.

I was playing arounf with the user's AppData folders a bit, trying to cop the working users data over the faultyone, but wthout success in the first place - and since this is a companys machine im working with, i just enjoy 10 now and leave it for good (-:

bst.regards, me (-:

 

Well you can only do so much with a company machine! A clean install now would have to be upto the management there.*Eek*Nerd

Still glad to see you were able to find something that works at least for the time being anyways.