Start button does not work!

[maryann ns]

See my post below about upgrade issues. I just downloaded and installed the old Windows 7 games. I went to start to find them and up came this error. A blue rectangle appears on the screen and says they will try to fix it when I sign out and in again. I have just done that three times. I have also switched users. The other user has the start menu working just fine. Stupidly I am back to my own login so I can't tell you exactly what the error message says.

Is there any other way to access programs (apps as they are now called) other than via the start menu?

Help! How can I fix this?

 

[Trouble]

I can't believe the number of problems we are seeing associated with this most recent cumulative update and its' immediate predecessor.
I think that for the most part many of us sail blissfully through them with out any problem at all, but.....
There seems to be just or almost as many who experience various problems and they seem to be mostly associated with some type of corruption in the user profile.

I have also switched users. The other user has the start menu working just fine

Since it seems to impact the user profile of the user who is logged in at the time, I think I'll create a second local admin user just to run Windows Updates from now on, just to be safe (maybe)

Is there any other way to access programs (apps as they are now called) other than via the start menu?

I don't believe I'm going to suggest this, but......
If it helps, then it helps. Maybe it will get you over the hump temporarily until the next round of updates either fixes your issue or breaks something else.
Consider installing Classic Shell from here http://classicshell.net/
It's a shame that someone would need to resort to that to simply, make their computer work again but many people use it and seem to like it, so I thought I would pass along the possible option.

The other option is of course to create a new admin user and copy your old profile items over to the new profile, which is a bit of a pain but not too difficult
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/fix-corrupted-user-profile#1TC=windows-7
The Windows 7 instructions remain pretty much the same for Windows 10.

 

[maryann ns]

Wow, Trouble - thanks for the quick response. I will work on this tomorrow and report back.

 

[Trouble]

Please do.
Always glad to hear back, one way or the other.

 

[maryann ns]

So I did nothing but for now the Start menu is back. I left the computer on sleep for hours while it backed up onto an external drive. This morning all was well. It has been working fine all day. We'll see how long it lasts.

 

[Gideon]

Glad to here it is working again.

 

[maryann ns]

Well it didn't last long! We are back to not having a start menu and not being able to access what I call programs.

These are the things I have tried based on advice I have found in various places:

1. Recovery - open system restore - and reset to an earlier date. There were two earlier dates available and I tried both. One of these was an automatic Windows 10 update and I bet that caused the problem.

2. Task Manager - Msconfig - safe boot - restart in safe mode - change back to normal and restart. I have tried this several times and in a few different ways with no luck.

I will try removing Dropbox and AntiMalwareBytes in the next few days and report back.

When is Microsoft going to fix this problem.

I am about ready to get back to Windows7. It did not give me this kind of grief. I'll have to figure out how to do that, however.

 

[maryann ns]

So I have been too busy to work on this. I set up a new user account so I could easily access programs. Then we had problems with our new printer. So I decided to uninstall the printer and reinstall it fresh. I used our other laptop to do this and it went well.

Lo and behold when I went to wake up my laptop and sign in, I had the start button and taskbar functions back.

I had problems before we got the new printer so I expect something else will set off the very temperamental Windows 10.

 

[Trouble]

Interesting.... I've seen a couple other posts that suggest that a USB attached peripheral ( one or two even saying a printer) was responsible for this behavior.
Now I'm thinking that there may have been something to those claims.
I figured they were just coincidental anecdotes and that a subsequent update behind the scenes was actually responsible for the seemingly automagic resolution.

 

[maryann ns]

The printer is on our wi-fi but I used a USB cable to my husband's laptop while installing it originally, and again when reinstalling it yesterday.

There seem to be a variety of things which set it off. I am sure with me it was an update though going back to an earlier time to reset did not help.