SOLVED Right Click On Start Menu Not Working (v1903/18362.175)

[Tension]

I (stupidly, it seems) forced an update to 1903 and encountered all sorts of problems to do with missing settings, shortcuts and icons, most of which I've got around now but there is no response when I right click on the Windows start menu icon. Right click works elsewhere.

I checked the the winx folder and the three groups are all empty.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[Trouble]

Hello and welcome to the forum.
I'll assume that holding the windows logo key on your keyboard while striking the X key produces nothing as well..??
Have you tried using the native Windows System File Checker
sfc /scannow
To see if it might find and fix the issue??

 

[Tension]

Thanks for the reply.
Winkey+X = nothing, although the winkey+R works as expected. The SFC utility asked for permission to run but came and went in a flash with no noticeable result so I'm assuming it didn't actually do anything.

 

[davehc]

Thanks for the reply.
Winkey+X = nothing, although the winkey+R works as expected. The SFC utility asked for permission to run but came and went in a flash with no noticeable result so I'm assuming it didn't actually do anything.

The command should, not mentioned, be in a command prompt-Not in Run

 

[Tension]

Thank you, Dave. I had fun figuring out how to run Powershell as an admin, but solved it with ctrl+shift+enter when it was in the Run box. The scan ran and reported thus:

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired them.
For online repairs, details are included in the CBS log file located at
windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For offline
repairs, details are included in the log file provided by the /OFFLOGFILE flag.

Unfortunately, the fixed files haven't fixed the problem :-( and after a reboot I don't notice any differences . I've got the log file but I'm not up to translating it. The SCF scan runs to about 800 lines, none of which I understand!

 

[davehc]

Copy to the forum -one of the professors can help! But it doesn't look like the problem is there

 

[Tension]

Sorry for the delay, here's the log file. It covers July 2nd and seems to have recorded 379 lines when I ran SFC incorrectly from the Run box. 380 on is from when I ran it from the console after Davehc put me right. I see some warnings about duplicate ownership in the log but don't know their significance.

I ran SFC again this morning and it said: "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations."

Right click still doesn't work and I have also noted that at least one of my applications (Calibre e-Book Management) lost the location of its library database and files twice in the last few days. Maybe a connection?

Have a good day today if you're in the US

 

[davehc]

I have read that you are not alone. A registry fix has been suggested on one or two sites, but were not always successful.
In view of the fact that you forced the update (Often a good idea, which works) I would suggest a clean install using the media creation tool. It will mean that you will probably need to reinstall some of your thirs party software.

 

[Tension]

Ouch! You say "some" of the third party software, is there any way to get an idea of what would be lost? I have a lot of not easy to reinstall applications that I just know will turn into a nightmare.

Were any of the registry fixes successful? Is it worth trying that approach first, do you think?

 

[davehc]

If all goes well, using the media creation tool. at the start you will be asked if you wish to retain your data or make a clean install. There seem to be individual experiences of this. I have used the system a few times and have not lost any installed software.
I had a quick browse, and found this page. Maybe worth having a read through that?

How To Solve Mouse Right Click Not Working in Windows 10 - Driver Easy

Tried and tried the right click on your mouse but it just wouldn’t pop open a menu? I know how you feel. But don't worry, it's actually quite easy to fix...

www.drivereasy.com

Before you do:
1. Check if you have any updates waiting. There may already be a fix.
2. PLEASE. Make an image of your installation before you do anything. It takes 10 minutes +/- to restore back to the original.
3. Export your registry to a safe place, before you do anything at all with it.

 

[Tension]

You're right, there are two updates waiting (why didn't it tell me??).

2019-06 update for .NET Framework 3.5 and 4.8 for W10 v1903 (KB4502584)
2019-06 Cumulative update for v1903 x64 (KB4501375)

Doing a system image which takes a long time as there are two drives, one with the OS and one with the program files and user stuff. It takes almost 4 hours. Will see what the updates do when it's finished.

 

[Tension]

Reached the end and reported that the backup failed "new bad clusters found on the source volume. These clusters not backed up. (0x8078007D). I ran error checking on both drives and they both showed up as clean. I didn't go as far as fooling around with the partition sizes which others report as a fix.

On the basis that I have a system image that is about 3 weeks old, I backed up the registry and decided to install the updates. No problems encountered but the right click issue still remains.

 

[Tension]

The answer to the Right Click Problem!

If you right click on the START button but do not see a context menu you likely have corrupted or missing folder:

c:\User\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WinX

The solution is just to copy this folder (and its three subfolders) from a working machine. In my case, I was able to copy these files from a different Windows profile that was not experiencing the problem.
Also, in case you have not figured this out yet, you can customize your right click menu by making changes to:

c:\User\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WinX\Group1
c:\User\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WinX\Group2
c:\User\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WinX\Group3

I used a user I'd set up as a trial and not worked with. Looks like Default would be a good bet too. This helpful tip worked to deal with the problem and there are some useful bits of info in the responses to the fix which you can find here.

My system is still behaving strangely - programs seem to be losing preference settings and opening like it's the first time and I've found at lease a couple that are missing completely from the start menu, both tiles and the listing. I'm just going to deal with things as they arise and hope that a future update will sort things out.

I did do a backup with Macrium and it looks like it's going to be my tool of choice from now on (although I still need to test with a restore). Many thanks to davehc for his help with this problem.