[How To] Re-register Start Menu In Windows 10

Thanx i just tried and this worked. Good job..

worked for me too thanks Man :)

Very nice find kapil!

Thanks it helped a lot to me.

it did not work for me

not worked for me. access denied

doesn´t work T.T
it says access denied.
help

Arrgh. I was able to complete all the steps, but it just didn’t work. I have been trying to fix this for two days straight. Very, very frustrating.

I ran the fix s couple of times. I did not see any change. I did find a windows file, ShellExperienceHost.exe was supposed to be running and wasn’t. opened that file and most thing started working. with the exception of search. No matter where you select that from, it does not work. The other thing is not to reboot, hot or cold or you are back to square one. Left click on the Windows Icon or the Notification Icon will do nothing right clicking will get those menus open. Cortana still not working.

After several days of most things working, I made the mistake of doing a restart. Now, I’m back to square one. Left clicking Windows icon, Cortana icon, or Notification icon does nothing. To make it worse, ShellExperienceHost.exe apparently will not run at all now. Also tried the re-registry fix in Power shell with admin. That did absolutely nothing. So at the moment, I have a $1,500 machine to do email and surf the web.. Cannot get to any of my apps. This is getting very frustrating.

I went all the way up to number 4, and restarted the computer, but the start button did not work.

Did not work for me.
I regret updating to Windows 10.
I have been trying all the fixes recommended by the community.
Windows 10 is ” the new gravity ” it sucks.
I have been trying to fix this problem for at least 4 days now.

I got following message after completion of SFC:
“Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.” Not sure now what to do the next.

When I tried to go through “task manager’ i am getting this message “c:\WINDOWS\System32\taskmgr.exe
File system error (65535)”
So I can not move further, to solve start button.
I very much appreciate your help.

No change.

I am very much scared that my computer ha ‘massive corruption’. I am frightened to run any of the further ‘play around’ on the system. Is there any way that I fresh ‘reinstall windows 10’ so that all the corrupted files will be corrected?

With Regards.

This seems too complicated for me. I am not sure what is system recovery drive and how to use and run. I was thinking to download from the internet a fresh windows 10 and will replace the any ‘corrupted file’ to solve the problem.

I got message to book Windows 10. I booked it. After some days, it got installed itself, at the beginning I remember start button was OK, but next day when I open my laptop, it did not work. I did not checked at that time about word document saving. Now word document also can not save when I create a new document.
So I do not have installation disc to reinstall Windows 10.

I somehow managed to create another username, I can not remember now how I did it. The start button is working now. Word document is also OK. It is also showing old username. I do not know if I can delete it, I also do not know how to delete the old one. I have not touched it, fearing that if I delete it, it may effect the new one (which is working perfectly now).

Excellent +1

I tried
Get-appxpackage -all *shellexperience* -packagetype bundle |% {add-appxpackage -register -disabledevelopmentmode ($_.installlocation + “\appxmetadata\appxbundlemanifest.xml”)}
but it didn’t work. I tried with and without the spaces – this is a flipping nuisance. Is there no Microsoft fix that can get the start button going again?

I have tried everything with no programming ability and nothing is working. I want to try the powershell information, but am unsure (again no programming experience) was the character is before the %, it appears as a 1 or perhaps I, but as I am unsure and do not want to risk corrupting my computer, I thought I would ask. Help is appreciated..

This didn’t work for me. I have a 64bit desktop just upgraded from W8 and was expecting to use the start button as per W8 but the start button does nothing on left mouse click. I cannot find applications as per W8 which is what I expected.

Thanks! Worked for me too ;)

I tried this and it did not work for me. When I left click on the Start Menu is gives me a message: Critical Error Your Start menu isn’t working. We’ll try to fix it the next time you sign in. A a button that says: Sign out now.
There is no other option than to click the button. The last time this happened to me I went out and bought a new lap top. It ran fine for several months. Now I am back to where I was 5 months ago.

This didn’t work. It didn’t recognize the portion that says all*shellexperience*

it didn’t work for me are there spaces in the powershell configuration. If I put spaces the letters change colors is this correct?

I tried this approach, and it doesn’t work. I’ve looked at your other suggestions, and I find it very frustrating that people have been having issues with this for six months now? And no fix? I upgraded, and it worked fine for a while, and I use a Toshiba Satellite, and sometimes the start window works, but Cortana is simply dead. And my notifications button down by the time and date won’t always work, either.

Seriously, I’m not a fantastic computer wiz when it comes to coding. What can I do, and when will Microsoft figure out how to fix it?

i have been searching all over for a solution for this problem that will work for me with no luck. I am sick of windows. it is not bad enough that they change operating systems every two years and quit supporting older os es and programs, now we have to go thru all this effort just to get the damned operating system to work. If you had a car that worked this way you would drive it back to the dealer and right thru the showroom. I am now even more convinced that bill gates is the spawn of the devil. PLEASE DO NOT GIVE ME ANY FREE OPERATING SYSTEMS. PLEASE SOMEONE GIVE ME ONE THAT WORKS AND I WILL PAY FOR IT.

I’m having this problem for the first time this late after buggy updates. I have tried all suggested fixes with no resolution. I have attempted an sfc scan but after 2% it cmd comes back with ‘Windows resource protection could not perform the requested operation’. I do not want to resort to reinstalling windows every time there is a bug like this. I need direction as to what I can do to get a permeant fix for this issue.

If it helps anyone this worked for me:
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers |Where-Object {$_.InstallLocation -notlike “*vclibs*” -and $_.InstallLocation -notlike “*net*” } | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”}

It is important to exclude the vclibs and .NET components as that was breaking Windows Store and Calculator. YMMV.

Sorry to say it didn’t work for me either (unless I didn’t understand it).
I opened Task Manager as explained.
I checked the box Create this task with administrative privileges.
I typed the text correctly.
Hit the Enter Key and nothing happened.
After a few seconds the C:\WINDOWS\system32> prompt reappeared.
I restarted the PC and the Start Button still does not function.
Help Please
Thanks

It worked to me and I am very thankful for your help!!!

Get-appxpackage : Access is denied.
Access is denied.
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-appxpackage -all *shellexperience* -packagetype bundle |% {add-ap …
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Get-AppxPackage], UnauthorizedAccessException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.UnauthorizedAccessException,Microsoft.Windows.Appx.PackageManager.Commands.GetAppxPackageCommand

HELP PLEASE

my start up not working something not right guide me how to fix it

I also saw a comment that said this was somehow caused by “Dropbox.” I was not using it that much and uninstalled it. Worked like a champ. However, I still have Dropbox on two other machines… without the “Start Menu not workin…” problem.

Thanks a lot! This worked for me!

Kapil, that worked! Thanks so much. Re-registering the start menu was a cool work around!

When I did it, it worked and then once I rebooted the computer the message is back! :(

I tried this process but it was not working
So I uninstalled dropbox from the system and everything is back to normal
atleast for now!

tried this twice. both times the machine thought about what I entered and then returned to
the P SC,,,,,,,,,,,,>
I get the impression this fix only works if certain parts of the problem exist.

None of this worked for me nor did any other fixes that worked for others. I read someone just deleted Dropbox & the start menu came back. I did that & IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hours of wasted time.

HI, I used the fix in the Administrative Powershell & it worked for about a week. The same problem came back so I ran the fix again & it worked again. Is this normal that the problem comes back & can it be fixed permanently ?

i am getting this
and don’t know how to do it as an administrator
thanks in advance

this did not solve the problem at all. I was able to successfully complete the task above using administrator options but after reboot, i have no access to my start menu of Cortana. Windows 10 sucks!

It worked for me. Thanks!

great!thank you… finally solved!!!!!!! :)

Kapil
Thank you for your diligence and persistence!
My problem seems to be a hybrid. In my admin account, cortana and the windows search/tiles work correctly – and have. My problem is with my user account which does not have admin privileges, and in which Cortana and the Windows shell option have stopped working (give me a critical error message) – I don’t recall what broke it – it is in the past several months – havent’ added software – I think it was after a windows update. I reran the powershell process in the admin account, but it did not fix the situation. If I could I would like to fix the account rather than recreate a new one since I have so many programs registered there.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank you Kapil! It worked after the powershell command was executed, and my system was restarted!

THANK YOU ;-;

Great, finally!! Thanks a lot!

Kapil this was a god send after pulling my hair out trying to work with MS. Thank you so very much. Cheers mate!

It unfortunately didn’t work for me

sorry but this didn’t work on me

These comments made on this forum have done NOTHING to help resolve the startmenu issue!!

First, it appears that you’ve only responded to those for whom your fix worked. At least one other person (Ruann) received the same “ACCESS DENIED” message that I just did (12/1/2016 – 3:33 PM EST)
and you left no response!
Did we both mistype the command line? If so, fine; just tell us (and the rest of the followers here) and I’ll go back and try retyping it again. However, if that message means something else, PLEASE leave a comment so that we can make another attempt to rectify this mind-numbing situation.
Thank you.

I have been working on this all day with no success. The day has been VERY frustrating! Finally, found your post and gave it a try (though not expecting anything) and it fixed the problem. Thanks so much!!!

i dont have the tick box option’create this option as administrative privilage;

I am trying to solve this from past 4 days and have tried many solutions but not able to solve it. I tried to run the command in powershell administrative mode and gave this reply:

Get-AppXPackage : The database disk image is malformed
The database disk image is malformed
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers |Where-Object {$_.InstallLocation -notlike …
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : NotSpecified: (:) [Get-AppxPackage], Exception
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.Exception,Microsoft.Windows.Appx.PackageManager.Commands.GetAppxPackageCommand

What to do now? This windows 10 problem is really frustrating. Please help.

sfc details are this:

2017-02-13 19:07:27, Info CSI 00000614 [SR] Cannot repair member file [l:25]’AddInProcess32.exe.config’ of AddInProcess32, version 10.0.14393.0, arch amd64, nonSxS, pkt {l:8 b:b77a5c561934e089} in the store, file is missing
2017-02-13 19:07:30, Info CSI 00000644 [SR] Cannot repair member file [l:25]’AddInProcess32.exe.config’ of AddInProcess32, version 10.0.14393.0, arch amd64, nonSxS, pkt {l:8 b:b77a5c561934e089} in the store, file is missing
2017-02-13 19:07:30, Info CSI 00000645 [SR] This component was referenced by [l:89]’Microsoft-Windows-NetFx3-OnDemand-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.14393.0.NetFx3-FOD’
2017-02-13 19:07:30, Info CSI 00000646 [SR] Could not reproject corrupted file \??\C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v3.5\AddInProcess32.exe.config; source file in store is also corrupted

Thanks Kapil for the reply!

I tried the powershell option 2 times, but was failed to restore the health. I also tried the DISM command in command prompt and it said “The source files could not be downloaded” after 100% scanning. Error code is 0x800f0906. Scan health showed that it is repairable.

What next?

^^ I tried the FIX 1. At 20% is gave Error: 2 The system cannot find the file specified. For Fix-2 I don’t have an Windows ISO disc image for Windows 10 since I updated the system online from Windows 7. I am using Windows 10 Pro (x64) v1607 (14393.693)

^^ Ok thanks. Direct download is not available as I have subscription associated with my account. Downloading via MCT than will make a DVD and from it I will have to make ISO image on the PC as it is mentioned that image downloaded via MCT will be of .esd form and not work with DISM commands.

^^ *no subscription associated. Hope this works.

Downloaded the Windows 10 from MS site & created ISO using its MCT.
Than converted install.esd to install.wim & placed it in source folder,
Than made ISO file and mounted it to virtual drive with letter G,
Than tried DISM option with source, replacing X with G, it made 100% and gave error 0x800f081f, the source file could not be found :(

Now I think Windows 7 was better than this :(

^^ @Kapil Any other solution or way?

^^ Thanks. I have finally decided to reset my pc (with keeping my personal files option).
One last question: Will resetting remove other user accounts?
There are two accounts on my pc, one of mine and one of my dad.

^^ Can’t reset (refresh) ..!!! Error: There was a problem resetting this PC.
Now what..!? If I format using the downloaded ISO, which key I had to use as I don’t have key for windows 10, I upgraded it online on my original windows 7?

^^Unfortunately none of the solution worked in resetting. Now only formatting is the option. Just tell me about the registration key issue I asked above. :(

Thanks. Finally formatted the PC. It was automatically activated, not needed to enter the key.

Thank you! The powershell command worked for me to get Cortana working after many hours of frustration.

Thanks alot :) DONE

How long should it take for the command to complete? Thanks

Pah! – didn’t work for me then. Thanks anyway

It did not work for me even though it went smoothly. Rebooted and still no start menu.

I’ve read these comments and mine is not resetting. I tried everything. But you all should know this is the 5th time this has happened to me. The first time I paid Microsoft $49 and all they did was reset my tablet. Rip off. I could do that without their help. Then I just reset the tablet. Last time I called Microsoft since it was in conjunction with their windows 10 update. They actually fixed it for me. That was on 8/5/2017 and today 9/1/2017 it did it again. This is definitely a Microsoft issue. I’m so tired of rebuilding this table.

you are a wizard! Thank you man I tried your trick and it works.

I’m looking at all of these comments and I’m just shaking my head.
I, too, downloaded and installed the fall update the day it was available in my updates. I had the same problem, Start Menu missing tiles, Task Bar missing icons, multiple programs which say installed but aren’t available via the start menu. The Store says “installed”, but there is no option to uninstall or pin to Start Menu. I talked with techs three times – once by text, two by phone calls and no fix worked. I currently have no Mail and Calendar, Photos, or Groove (to name a few). I can open them through the Store, but no icon appears on the Task Bar to pin, nor in the Start Menu. As soon as they are closed, they are gone from the desktop.

It is not up to us, the windows users, to have to try to fix this through the registry. Most of us are not that familiar with that. Reading this thread, and hundreds of comments in other threads, it appears that some of the fixes work part of the time, but not all of the time.

It has now been more than 2 weeks since the release; I’ve seen some web sites report that Microsoft “is aware of the problem and working on it”.

It would be nice if Microsoft would issue some kind of statement telling us the status of this so-called fix. I have been using Windows since 1998. This is the first time that this is happened. I feel that we have been let down by this release and worst of all, Microsoft is pretty much saying nothing about it.

I am extremely disappointed. And, no, I am not going to try to fix this through the registry. I don’t feel comfortable, plus it is not my job to fix this.

My start menu is still not working. Edge, Cortana & Action Center also stopped responding. Win10. Please help.

It worked for start menu but search still does not work. please help.

I was about to give up on rescueing my start menu. This did the trick.
Thank you, worked great.

Neil Sleightholm thank you. your fix was the only one that has worked for me.

Thank you! Works fine to me!!!

This worked wonders where other solutions did not. Re-registering the modern/metro apps with “Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”}” may also be necessary for some people too. This will re-download all metro apps and may take a while. Ensure Windows Firewall service IS running before running the command. It depends on this service.

The ShellExperienceHost app isn’t labeled as a bundle, yet you instructed the Get-appxPackage command to return bundles only. As a result, the first half of the command returns null, and nothing gets reinstalled.
If you strip out the ‘-packagetype bundle’, it works.

Hi Kapil .

I tried buts no luck the stat menu and other icon in taskbar not showing up .

It gets the job done, but browser icons kinda dissapears sometimes (the only solution I found was to restart explorer.exe), only the icons, I can still click it, though.

FYI I got the problem after I used Casper to clone an hd to a ssd as part of a hardware upgrade. Your fix worked. Thanks so much for posting the solution. The only fixes On the MS website had to do with safe mode and didn’t work. I appreciate your help Namaste friend.

You do know that one feature of the Windows Powershell is that you can paste from the clipboard? Thus avoiding the need to “carefully type” :-) Just saying!

Didn’t work.

We had a similar problem after applying a GPO in our work environment. The work around described in this article led us nowhere though. We found out that the GPO in question disabled the read permissions of the All Applications Packages security group on the Software folder in the Local Machine Hive in Windows 10 thus rendering the Start Menu and Microsoft Applications useless. Even disabling the GOP did not reverse the situation, we had to explicitly assign the permissions after disabling the GPO. I hope that, for those of you who have not found an answer yet to this problem, this might be an avenue of exploration.

¡GRACIAS! ¡THANKS!

Its not working, once I press enter and I restart, the issue comes back

Thanks kapil, it worked perfectly for me.

None of it worked, not even the new user account. As for running Powershell to re-register the Start Menu, that advice was just plain wrong. Here is the command you recommended:

Get-appxpackage -all *shellexperience* -packagetype bundle |% {add-appxpackage -register -disabledevelopmentmode ($_.installlocation + “\appxmetadata\appxbundlemanifest.xml”)}

It doesn’t work. Period.

Another poster suggested that the start menu app is not part of a bundle, so stripping out the “-packagetype bundle” parameter would make it work.

Both wrong. The problem is that the appxmetadata folder does not exist in the ShellExperienceHost folder. In fact the referenced XML file appxbundlemanifest.xml does not exist anywhere in ShellExperienceHost or any of its subfolders.

Besides, even if you strip out the “-packagetype bundle” parameter, the referenced XML file is still appxbundlemanifest.xml .

Really? So if you don’t specify the start menu re-registration as part of a bundle, the xml file is still named
appxBUNDLEmanifest.xml???? Nonsense.

Here’s the real problem: Windows 10 is garbage. It’s just poorly designed, poorly written, untested, junk.

Just look at the suggestions in this article. There are multiple suggestions, all completely different from one another. Why do you suppose that is?

Simple. It’s because this author and none of the other “experts” have any real ideas how to fix such problems in Windows 10. So they throw out multiple unrelated solutions with statements like “try this one. if that doesn’t work, try this one…” and so on.

In other words, they’re guessing because they have no clue as to what actually fixes the problem. So you get try all sorts of random guesses that don’t work.

Garbage. Absolute garbage.

Hi
As I insert the command I get the following error. Anybody know how to solve this? I’m kinda desperate to resolve the start menu lol.

Get-appxchange : The term ‘Get-appxchange’ is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program.
Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.
At line:1 char:1
+ Get-appxchange -all *shellexperience* -packagetype bundle |% {add-app …
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (Get-appxchange:String) [], CommandNotFoundException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

@Kapil Arya

All your command examples use curly quotation marks:

“\appxmetadata\appxbundlemanifest.xml”

However, you’ll need to use straight quotation marks:

“\appxmetadata\appxbundlemanifest.xml”

Worked 100%, thank you

This suggestion did not fix the Start Menu Critical Error issue for me. I am still searching for a fix to this issue since it was broken in the last Microsoft update.

Thanks worked for me .

Hi Kapil, I followed your instructions and copy-pasted your command but got an error: Windows did not find Get-appxpackage

I did it but it didn’t work, it is still showing ” Critical Error : Start Menu isn’t working. We can fix this after you sign in again. “

Your method going to TaskManager seems unnecessary complicated. Any reason why you suggest that?

To run PS… 2 steps:
1) Press Win key
2) Type “powershell”, ENTER

I’d about given up after trying many methods to bring up the start menu. Your instructions worked perfectly!! Thank you!!!

A perfect fix to an annoying problem! Thanks for sharing!

Hi, I appreciate this is now August 2022, so a long time after this fix was suggested, but it did not work for me. I’m running Windows 10 Pro x64 with all the latest updates. Also FYI, the Run dialog now doesn’t have the checkbox for admin privs: you have to hit Shift-ctrl-enter when running the command.
Powershell ran the pasted command very quickly.
Still have the same issue after reboot.
I’m still looking for a solution.
Cheers

Problem with windows10 Start menu; Once selected Start menu opens, but then quickly closes..automatically on its own. If Start menu is opened in ‘safe boot’ mode..Start menu opens and stays open for any selection to be performed. But out of ‘safe boot’ mode it opens/closes by itself. I can open ‘programs’ via command window…..but only thru those from memory of what’s on that Start menu.