4 ms·

Windows Start Menu not starting? You're not alone

28 points by LinuxBender 4y ago

i_like_waiting 4y ago
I had similar issue on Windows 10, so not sure if only 11 is affected. (After startup whole startbar was frozen and internet as well for 20-30 minutes). Reinstalling windows helped but only until all updates were installed. No idea if the issue still persists, I switched to Qubes OS already.
metiscus 4y ago
I ran into this last week and found a thread somewhere that resolved it for me. I can't find the link but it was a PowerShell command that enumerated all of the packages on the system and reregistered them. I wonder if it was related to this issue.
- BizarroLand 4y ago
  I ran into the same issue on a work computer and running the commands on this page solved it for me: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/windows-10-start-menu-not-working-solved/ https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/windows-10-start-menu-not-...
  - metiscus 4y ago
    That was it! That was exactly what I did. Sfc fixed nothing (I've never seen it fix anything) but the PowerShell command worked flawlessly.
traspler 4y ago
Meanwhile it‘s still pure luck if you can open the calendar or if it will take 20s to open with all the days missing. (Windows 11, calendar from the taskbar clock) - Windows 11 just doesn‘t like to open menus from the taskbar it seems ;)
- Arrath 4y ago
  Yup, I've run in to that one.
charles_f 4y ago
I don't mind this kind of passing bugs in win11 which, as trust breaking as they are, also easily go away. What kills me with 11 (and 10 afaik) is the cpu and ram consumption of the system itself. Antivirus / antimalware randomly spike and make the whole system slow. Logging in sometimes takes a whole minute for what I assume is checking stuff with azure ad. This is the kind of stuff that I would love to see fixed, and at the same time know will never be. Resource consumption of the OS doesn't seem to be a priority and that's a shame. Meanwhile even a default install of Ubuntu is much leaner and makes you forget the os, while being much more consistent. (side note, win ui is also very clunky and you can easily identify all the generations of OSs since XP by using just the right click menu and the settings windows. Tells something about attention to details, you clearly see a pm in a subteam with a concept, rather than a consistent overall experience )
- winternett 4y ago
  Google Chrome also seems to eat memory like cookie monster as it scans your entire HD... It also doesn't give the memory back until crash or close. Windows task manager now is total crap. It does nothing to distinguish official (OS) services from app services, and does not enable easy app moderation at all. At this point we should be able to right click apps and processes directly in task manager to get a description on what they do and whether they are safe, rather than having to google their names and get info from shoddy and poorly written 3rd party pop-up and ad-laced "tech guru" sites. The future so far has underwhelmed me software-wise honestly.
  - karmakurtisaani 4y ago
    > The future so far has underwhelmed me software-wise honestly. Luckily this is not the case when it comes to Linux. It just keeps getting better by the year.
  - jgerrish 4y ago
    It'll get there, maybe not this generation, but it'll get there. I still remember messing with Sysinternals decades ago. It was inspiring seeing what it opened up. And I get the tradeoff between that and the Apple HIG. I really do. But Microsoft still has that ecosystem behind them. It's frustrating downloading a game on Steam or an app only to have it just not run in your primary OS.
Delphiza 4y ago
I'm not one of the anti-Microsoft brigade. My livelihood depends on Azure, and Windows is my daily driver... BUT... Windows 11 is a bag of spanners. It seems to not really work properly. Tablet mode doesn't work anymore, so I can't really use a pen. Various bits seem to be slow, such as the scrolling in the file explorer - it may be an attempt at better animation timings - it doesn't make sense really. My SD card reader doesn't seem to work. There are a lot of things that are just worse than they have ever been. Windows 11 seems to be a significant step backwards for no apparent benefit. I switch between Windows 10 (dev desktop) and Windows 11 (home laptop), and really cannot get on with Windows 11. I am genuinely stumped at how they could have produced something so regressive and, months after release, is still a bit shit.
- tempnow987 4y ago
  Couldn't agree more. Not being able to show separate taskbar buttons is a productivity killer for me. And that's just part of it. Do they actually talk to their (business) customers?
  - Doubtme 4y ago
    Of course. In terms of license increases then sure.
morninglight 4y ago
Many years ago, I realized that Microsoft did not want anyone to use the Start Menu. I switched to Classic Shell (now Open Shell) and never looked back. Yes, I would recommend this to a friend -- even my mother. http://www.classicshell.net/ http://www.classicshell.net/ https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu
- runamok 4y ago
  Yeah I use that on one of my machines and essentially had to use it on my mom's machine when the "regular" start menu would crash on open. I haven't been super windows savvy for a decade but various suggested fixes (like sfc, windows rollbacks, malware scans, etc.) did nothing and open shell saved the day!
winternett 4y ago
I have a home laptop which had a just purchased new install of windows 10 on it until I was pretty much forced to upgrade to win 11. I am very disgruntled now, as my HDMI port (To my big screen TV) began to fail soon after the upgrade (Dell 1640 XPS laptop.. Do not buy). Soon thereafter my TV began restarting a lot as well because the screen brightness kept varying wildly and the audio now has pops in it whenever I stream video and multi-task on both screens. Other MAJOR frustrations is that the screen background cannot be matched when extending the display, the calendar does not show when I click the time/date displayed o the taskbar, task manager is no longer accessible by right clicking the taskbar, and worst of all, the task bar cannot be adjusted to a different position on screens -- I used to always set my taskbar to the top to recall the NT era. I also, as with every windows upgrade had to look up correct (new) drivers for all of my hardware components, as windows driver finder has never worked smoothly... ever.... in history. These wild changes cannot be simple mistakes or oversight in such a large company with so many employees so much experience in OS development. The only reason why these kinds of frustrations occur in my opinion is that MSFT is trying to implant a reason to update to their next OS, because right now, the only other place anyone can go is Linux (Which won't run all the apps I already bought/need) or to Mac (I have tried Apple, I don't like Apple, It's really not for me, Thanks I'll just suffer instead). I'll probably also need a new laptop by the time win 12 or whatever comes out, and a new TV for strange reasons. :/
- ChadNauseam 4y ago
  Just so you know, if you right click the star menu icon on the task bar, one of the options is to open the task manager
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
peanut_worm 4y ago
Windows 11 has been very sloppy. I’ve never seen a version of Windows with so many easily reproducible bugs.
- hulitu 4y ago
  You should try Windows ME. Although some people said it was stable for them.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jasec57322 4y ago
Does anybody here know how many devs/man-hours are assigned to what on the Windows OS? As with Twitter & Google, I believe that Microsoft spends exponentially more on implementing data collection, organisation & analysis, (i.e. monetising everything you do), than on actual user-facing features. Hence the notable lack of functionality/features with the big-tech companies, (given the sheer amount of dev-hours consumed), because they spent at-least 100 hours designing and implementing the storage & analysis systems for the new data points a new feature creates).

28 points by LinuxBender 4y ago

I had similar issue on Windows 10, so not sure if only 11 is affected. (After startup whole startbar was frozen and internet as well for 20-30 minutes). Reinstalling windows helped but only until all updates were installed. No idea if the issue still persists, I switched to Qubes OS already.

metiscus 4y ago

I ran into this last week and found a thread somewhere that resolved it for me. I can't find the link but it was a PowerShell command that enumerated all of the packages on the system and reregistered them. I wonder if it was related to this issue.

BizarroLand 4y ago
I ran into the same issue on a work computer and running the commands on this page solved it for me: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/windows-10-start-menu-not-working-solved/ https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/windows-10-start-menu-not-...
- metiscus 4y ago
  That was it! That was exactly what I did. Sfc fixed nothing (I've never seen it fix anything) but the PowerShell command worked flawlessly.

traspler 4y ago

Meanwhile it‘s still pure luck if you can open the calendar or if it will take 20s to open with all the days missing. (Windows 11, calendar from the taskbar clock) - Windows 11 just doesn‘t like to open menus from the taskbar it seems ;)

Arrath 4y ago
Yup, I've run in to that one.

charles_f 4y ago

I don't mind this kind of passing bugs in win11 which, as trust breaking as they are, also easily go away. What kills me with 11 (and 10 afaik) is the cpu and ram consumption of the system itself. Antivirus / antimalware randomly spike and make the whole system slow. Logging in sometimes takes a whole minute for what I assume is checking stuff with azure ad. This is the kind of stuff that I would love to see fixed, and at the same time know will never be. Resource consumption of the OS doesn't seem to be a priority and that's a shame. Meanwhile even a default install of Ubuntu is much leaner and makes you forget the os, while being much more consistent. (side note, win ui is also very clunky and you can easily identify all the generations of OSs since XP by using just the right click menu and the settings windows. Tells something about attention to details, you clearly see a pm in a subteam with a concept, rather than a consistent overall experience )

winternett 4y ago
Google Chrome also seems to eat memory like cookie monster as it scans your entire HD... It also doesn't give the memory back until crash or close. Windows task manager now is total crap. It does nothing to distinguish official (OS) services from app services, and does not enable easy app moderation at all. At this point we should be able to right click apps and processes directly in task manager to get a description on what they do and whether they are safe, rather than having to google their names and get info from shoddy and poorly written 3rd party pop-up and ad-laced "tech guru" sites. The future so far has underwhelmed me software-wise honestly.
- karmakurtisaani 4y ago
  > The future so far has underwhelmed me software-wise honestly. Luckily this is not the case when it comes to Linux. It just keeps getting better by the year.
- jgerrish 4y ago
  It'll get there, maybe not this generation, but it'll get there. I still remember messing with Sysinternals decades ago. It was inspiring seeing what it opened up. And I get the tradeoff between that and the Apple HIG. I really do. But Microsoft still has that ecosystem behind them. It's frustrating downloading a game on Steam or an app only to have it just not run in your primary OS.

Delphiza 4y ago

I'm not one of the anti-Microsoft brigade. My livelihood depends on Azure, and Windows is my daily driver... BUT... Windows 11 is a bag of spanners. It seems to not really work properly. Tablet mode doesn't work anymore, so I can't really use a pen. Various bits seem to be slow, such as the scrolling in the file explorer - it may be an attempt at better animation timings - it doesn't make sense really. My SD card reader doesn't seem to work. There are a lot of things that are just worse than they have ever been. Windows 11 seems to be a significant step backwards for no apparent benefit. I switch between Windows 10 (dev desktop) and Windows 11 (home laptop), and really cannot get on with Windows 11. I am genuinely stumped at how they could have produced something so regressive and, months after release, is still a bit shit.

tempnow987 4y ago
Couldn't agree more. Not being able to show separate taskbar buttons is a productivity killer for me. And that's just part of it. Do they actually talk to their (business) customers?
- Doubtme 4y ago
  Of course. In terms of license increases then sure.

morninglight 4y ago

Many years ago, I realized that Microsoft did not want anyone to use the Start Menu. I switched to Classic Shell (now Open Shell) and never looked back. Yes, I would recommend this to a friend -- even my mother. http://www.classicshell.net/ http://www.classicshell.net/ https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu

runamok 4y ago
Yeah I use that on one of my machines and essentially had to use it on my mom's machine when the "regular" start menu would crash on open. I haven't been super windows savvy for a decade but various suggested fixes (like sfc, windows rollbacks, malware scans, etc.) did nothing and open shell saved the day!

winternett 4y ago

I have a home laptop which had a just purchased new install of windows 10 on it until I was pretty much forced to upgrade to win 11. I am very disgruntled now, as my HDMI port (To my big screen TV) began to fail soon after the upgrade (Dell 1640 XPS laptop.. Do not buy). Soon thereafter my TV began restarting a lot as well because the screen brightness kept varying wildly and the audio now has pops in it whenever I stream video and multi-task on both screens. Other MAJOR frustrations is that the screen background cannot be matched when extending the display, the calendar does not show when I click the time/date displayed o the taskbar, task manager is no longer accessible by right clicking the taskbar, and worst of all, the task bar cannot be adjusted to a different position on screens -- I used to always set my taskbar to the top to recall the NT era. I also, as with every windows upgrade had to look up correct (new) drivers for all of my hardware components, as windows driver finder has never worked smoothly... ever.... in history. These wild changes cannot be simple mistakes or oversight in such a large company with so many employees so much experience in OS development. The only reason why these kinds of frustrations occur in my opinion is that MSFT is trying to implant a reason to update to their next OS, because right now, the only other place anyone can go is Linux (Which won't run all the apps I already bought/need) or to Mac (I have tried Apple, I don't like Apple, It's really not for me, Thanks I'll just suffer instead). I'll probably also need a new laptop by the time win 12 or whatever comes out, and a new TV for strange reasons. :/

ChadNauseam 4y ago
Just so you know, if you right click the star menu icon on the task bar, one of the options is to open the task manager

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

peanut_worm 4y ago

Windows 11 has been very sloppy. I’ve never seen a version of Windows with so many easily reproducible bugs.

hulitu 4y ago
You should try Windows ME. Although some people said it was stable for them.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jasec57322 4y ago

Does anybody here know how many devs/man-hours are assigned to what on the Windows OS? As with Twitter & Google, I believe that Microsoft spends exponentially more on implementing data collection, organisation & analysis, (i.e. monetising everything you do), than on actual user-facing features. Hence the notable lack of functionality/features with the big-tech companies, (given the sheer amount of dev-hours consumed), because they spent at-least 100 hours designing and implementing the storage & analysis systems for the new data points a new feature creates).