Windows 10: Windows 10 won't let me open the start button, or anything else.

I'm having the same problem. Can anyone help? Same as Wembley808 too. All apps are displaying an error message, I can only open file explorer and it won't turn off or restart

 

My problem in W10 was that when I logged in the desktop would show, icons on the desktop etc then everything would be locked out, not CTRL-ALT-DEL nothing, so I re-installed W7 and the problem still happened ! anyway long long story short I found the culprit ... Razer Orbweaver software.... If you have this GamePad basically boot to safe mode and look for the Service "Razer Game Scanner" and set it from "Automatic (Delayed)" to "Manual", reboot.. if you want to use your Orbweaver launch the Razer Snapse software.. worked for me.

 

Hey guys - seems as though I've run across the same problem.

When I go down to my toolbar to (eg choose a network connection....press the start bar....open my calendar)....I can't left click it. The little bar will show up above my mouse when I hover over, and I can right click....but I can't open anything down there.

I looked through the thread and I don't have any programs using up large amounts of CPU...the biggest is typically at 1%.

 

Hi, I previously stated that my main issue with W10 locking up when I signed in was my Razer software, I went back to Windows 7 and had the same problem, I managed to find that it was not the Razer software but in fact Norton 360.
I am on a different AV now and it was working fine, until an update kill W10, back on W7 and ain't moving.

 

Hey guys, I seem to be experiencing similar problems. It started when I was trying to wake my computer from Sleep Mode and it did not turn on, hence I resorted to holding on the start button to restart it.
After which, my laptop proceeded on to reboot and start up again, all seems fine until I log in and reach my desktop page. All my icons disappeared and I could not access the Start Menu. I tried to get to the task manger hoping to restart the explorer.exe but I was unable to even get my task manager to start up. The cursor was mostly the spinning wheel of death and I could not click on anything. The screen would turn white if I attempted to click on anything else and a small text box would pop up stating that Windows is not running properly, asking if I wish to end the task. Clicking yes to that did not help- it still went back to the white screen and/or going to a full black screen with just my cursor.
I once again held down on the start button to do a manual shut down and start up again. Even tried to remove my battery but nothing seems to work. This went on for about 5 times possibly (I had tried to do the F8 way but the reboot options were different from the ones stated online hence I did not tamper much with it), until it finally started up properly and I got it run as normal.
A relief as all my documents and work files are on this laptop and I have urgent work that needs to be done, however I am not concerned that such a thing might happen again as I have yet to find out the problem behind all this. Any advice on what I should do?
Thank you very much!

 

I'm experiencing the same problem. I downloaded Windows 10 over the weekend but didn't have the opportunity to try it out until today. I can't load any programs (Chrome, iTunes, etc) and can't even load the task manager or settings. I can't do a proper shut down and similarly experienced both the white and black screens. This is extremely frustrating and I'm hoping for some help! Thanks!

 

You can also try booting in safe mode and seeing if the slowdown persists. If you can load the recovery screen on boot, you might even be able to get to the Windows Reinstallation screen and reinstall Windows from there (also found in the settings application). This option was pretty useful when my laptop nearly lost EVERY (not even kidding) file and setting, while on the same installation and Microsoft account. If anyone is running Kaspersky on their computer, it is probably the Windows 7,8,or 8.1 version. When my laptop updated, it was still running the 8.1 version of Kaspersky so I decided to update it to the Windows 10 version. The updated seemed to go fine, until the computer restarted... The initial log on process took way longer than normal and when it logged me in, all my files were completely gone, 100% missing. Somehow my applications and programs still showed up in start, but not in the uninstall menu in Control Panel. I tried to run a program from start and my system basically died, from normal speed to super slow. Nothing was working, no task manager, no settings, no control panel, no win + x, using start to shutdown was futile, sleep key wasn't working, nothing. The power button refused to work as well, leaving me with no option but to unplug the battery and charger from the laptop and cut the power. Upon restarting, the computer was in the same condition, I uninstalled Kaspersky and tried booting again, but the situation was the same. File History was not restoring backed up files either, so I just reinstalled windows from settings (which worked if I didn't try to run a program) with the option to keep files but uninstall applications. After the reinstall all my settings and files were fully restored and were opening and all that, though no programs were installed due to the Windows recovery option I selected. After redownloading all my programs I was hesitant to install Kaspersky again, but I tried anyways. When reinstalling Kaspersky again it did not break my computer this time. After some digging around with log files, I discovered that a critical error occurred during the Kaspersky update, which caused a critical failure during the boot sequence. The critical failure during the reboot was caused by Kaspersky's error, which, in essence, disabled Windows' ability to read from the drive (causing the file and setting loss, as well as the CPU overload when trying to load applications it didn't think were there). The error caused by Kaspersky essentially broke Windows, which is why the reinstall worked as it fixed windows. When I reinstalled Kaspersky after Windows installed again, it wasn't trying to update a solidified program (like before) and instead installed Kaspersky fresh onto the computer causing no errors.

likely your problem originates with whatever Antivirus you are using, whether its an old version with compatibility issues or an updating issue like my experience was.

 

I plan to look over this more in depth tomorrow when I have more time, but in the meanwhile how do I boot in safe mode with Windows 10? I've done it before on pc's running older versions of Windows, but when I tried that method today it brought up some menus I was not at all familiar with. Thanks!

 

"CTRL + F4 will always shutdown Windows 10"

 

I am having the same issue I could really use some help