I actually love windows 10 (*cough after all bloat removed *cough and only offline updates) except i have this one issue... about once a month the start menu, search, settings button, windows apps, will not work. I have tried everything and every possible fix and the only way to get them back is to use system restore to the working state. which actually isnt a huge deal but its really the only fix i can find..and yes like i said ive tried everything..

*there are other fixes. they dont work for me..

it is interesting that i have observed ''shellexperiencehost'' not running in task manager when this strange event occurs.. when it happens again i will try and restart the process and see if it makes a difference.

 

Last edited: Nov 5, 2016

Are you sure that the Windows Update service is really switched off?

 

Ok, it is set to ''Manual (Trigger Start)'' i do update windows by downloading the offline updates..should i turn it off??

btw alot of people on the internet have this ''start menu stops working'' issue...

 

Last edited: Nov 5, 2016

try this: http://www.classicshell.net/
it's better anyway

 

I use Win7 here, but..... the main reason people move to 10 is because of its start menu

 

I would consider switching it off completely, among other things it might help avoiding that the pc will wake up at 3am to install updates out of the blue (true story ).

 

Tons of smart people in this website that keep complaining about problems of win 10 that dont really exist if you know what you doing. you reply says it all. how smart are you keeping the power on. wow that's genius dude. keep it up. all of you
stupidity never ends

 

The only thing its really better at is waking up.
Smart people benchmarks......
http://www.techspot.com/review/1042-windows-10-vs-windows-8-vs-windows-7/page4.html

 

Are you running Home, Pro or Enterprise?
How often do you actually power down your computer? A simple restart can work wonders.
Have you ever disabled Cortana by editing or renaming the SearchUI.exe?

 

Im running Pro. Restarting doesnt work..tried that, so far the only solution is to use system restore about once a month..sometimes less sometimes more. its wierd.. another thing was that i upgraded from 7 to 10 (i didnt do a clean install if that makes any difference) back in April 2016..

Let me know how to disable cortana, it may be that actually, the crap remover didnt really disable cortana..i never use cortana just the standard ''window search'' function.

 

It's a known issue which has been solved in one of the latest major updates.

If you don't want to update, you'll have to create another user account and migrate your data there; Then it should work again, but eventually you'll face the same issue all over again until you update.

 

I was asking about Cortana because if you do disable it the start menu and search and other features become unusable.
Cortana is integrated with the start button/menu search. If you disable it you can only search from inside file explorer.

 

I have updated to latest oct.26.2016 update... I am always checking the internet for the latest windows updates, then putting them on my thumbdrive and transferring them to my computer and installing them. so ''updating'' also does not work for me. its true the only thing i haven't tried is migrating and am not really happy about that.. there should be another fix other than that.. even running windows restore once an month seems easier than that.

Well if Cortana is the issue then it could be that when i ran the crap cleaner it f'd up my windows, i even have windows defender disabled and it made a ton of group policy changes.. of course before i ran it there is no warning from the developer..

 

Last edited: Nov 6, 2016

This was actually based on my real experience, not some fancy advice.
No reasons for the name calling and so on (unless of course you vote for Trump).

 

Last edited: Nov 6, 2016

Are you on the latest build? I had this issue at one point but an update fixed it

 

Installing the latest updates wont reverse the issue but will prevent it from happening again if you update it from a fresh account...At least that's what happened to me.

 

The only think what helped for me was take the newest peview Windows 10 DVD ( I took a preview Windows 10 DVD) -and install it again when windows is (inPlace Repair) started everything worked again also issues after sfc / scannow were fixed.

 

I am on build 14393.XXX (LATEST UPDATE) I regularly check https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/12387/windows-10-update-history

Hmmm.. interesting I will have to try that sometime i guess, the next time it happens. its too bad i just cant run ''Microsoft start menu patch.exe'' or something. :P

 

Last edited: Nov 14, 2016

Heh, I faced same issue a week ago. Out of nowhere, my start and search stopped working and I couldn't right click anything on the bar. Super annoying. Shellexperiencehost also not running. I tried everything, powershell magic, services, few applications that pottentially could fix it, new user account... I wish I could give you some answer but I don't have one. Nothing worked. On top of it, it turned out that I can't restore system or even reset, so I had to do clean install.

But to be fair, I got Win 10 when it came out and didn't have any problems till now, wchich is already great thing comparing to times of XP when I have to do reinstall every 4-5 months. Clearly Win 10 is the best Win to date.

 

It was fixed long time ago by the anniversary update i think. You can get it manually from m$ site.

There might be a fix that i tried and worked back then but my memory fails, something to do with shell extension registration bug. i might get back if i find anything.