Start menu and taskbar not working in Windows 10?

[Windows Central Question]

My laptop is LENOVO G510. It came with windows 8 single language. I upgraded to windows 8.1 single language a year ago. I updated it to windows 10 home by triggering the update. The upgrade went successfully. But the problem now is the start button, applications in the taskbar(only right click) and icons on the taskbar on the right side(time, battery, wifi etc) are not working. They work if I click them after a gap of ten minutes. But if I click them for a second time immediately, they won't work.

I got a message box showing "startmenu and cortana are not working, it will be fixed the next time you sign in". When I sign out and sign in, there is no change.

Is it my only problem or it occured to many laptops?
Is there any way to fix it?
Is Microsoft working to fix it soon?

Please inform me.

 

[cbarwin]

Re: Why isn't my Start menu and taskbar working in Windows 10?

Raheem Baker's solution worked for me too. Many thanks to him for the clear instructions. I was able to follow them myself and solve my problem.

 

[Spartan2707]

Re: Why isn't my Start menu and taskbar working in Windows 10?

I also registered just to be able to say thanks for this simple and very effective advice. My HP laptop wasn't even 3 months old when this frustrating problem started. I'm very grateful I came across your post.
Thanks a lot Raheem.

 

[wolfmagic]

Re: Why isn't my Start menu and taskbar working in Windows 10?

if you switch msconfig this way then back, how will that work beyond the one reboot? has it worked across a dozen boots aka several weeks? my asus exhibited this behavior twice within the first week of win10 upgrade. i never reboot, sleep/wake my machine for months at a time. since the win10 upgrade its been forced to reboot 2-3x, and had a 'faulty hardware' bsod yesterday, so i'm willing to reboot again, but it'd be great if posters got reminders 3-4 weeks later asking us to confirm that an alleged fix is still working and have us note how many sleep/wake/days its been running before calling it fixed. thanks. here goes nuthin. rly:

 

[Tree Hugger]

Re: Why isn't my Start menu and taskbar working in Windows 10?

Nice one Raheem Baker, worked a treat

 

[morlaine]

I have the same problem of a NON-functioning Taskbar. And none of the fixes I've found has solved the problem.

I see Microsoft throwing slop together and expecting their customers to test it and fix it for them. What a deal. The saying you get what you pay for comes to mind. Considering Windows 10 was free, I still consider it overpriced.

I've been with Windows since Windows 95 and every version seems to get worse, more error prone, and more convoluted.

 

[jsooney]

I have this problem occasionally on my mother's PC (she's my Win10 guinea pig). It seems to happen after Windows updates have been installed. I gave her an account with limited permissions so she doesn't get in too much trouble, but I think it causes problems when updates are installed. I usually have to login as the admin and let it do its thing then everything goes back to normal.

 

[kayak4fish]

Well I was happy for about five minutes as Raheems solution seemed to do the trick on my task bar, my start button still didnt work properly. Five minutes later task bar once again stopped working.

 

[toby coop]

"My solution was to right click the task bar, then under properties, navigation tab, I checked the box that said "Replace Command Prompt with Windows PowerShell in the menu when I right-click the lower left corner or press Windows key+X." Click apply and OK."

this really works .. after I tried all the rest.. many thanks

 

[Josephpaul27]

Re: Why isn't my Start menu and taskbar working in Windows 10?

***YOU MUST HAVE THE WINDOWS FIREWALL SERVICE RUNNING FOR THIS TO WORK***
1. Find C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe
2. Right-click and Run as Administrator
3. Copy this line:
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}
4. Right-click in the Powershell window to Paste and then press Enter.
5. There is no need to restart. The fix should implement right away.
If you have previously disabled Windows Firewall or do not have it running, the above steps will result in errors. Use the steps below to enable Windows Firewall and the reverse if you wish to turn it off again afterwards.
1. Right-click the Start button -> Click Run
2. Type Services.msc and press Enter
3. Scroll down to find Windows Firewall
4. Right-click then click Properties
5. Under Startup Type dropdown -> Select Manual. Click Apply
6. In the top left portion of the Services Window, Click Start this service.
7. Now follow the steps in the first section, and it should work.

Regards,
Joseph Paul

 

[nekooh]

Need used powershell

 

[kanavsingh]

i am facing the same problem. my pc is dell inspiron 15 .. what can be done?

 

[Marcus Orelius]

Nothing worked for me .... until I uninstalled Dropbox, rebooted and re-installed Dropbox... and everything works fine again....

 

[njstol01]

I have had the same problem for the last two weeks, although it seems to be only associated with my login (main account) and does not appear to have happened yet on my wife's account. My start/taskbar works fine for about 5 minutes, then stops responding. I haven't tried any of the fixes listed above, but the simplest works in a pinch- just log off and log back in. I'll try Raheem's touted fix, although it is odd that this fix from last year will work with something that must have happened in the last couple weeks after an update. we'll see....

 

[orlbuckeye]

I had a friend that asked me to fix his computer as he kept getting an error saying the Start menu doesn't work that restarting would fox it. Well after playing with it I realized that then start menu did work at all, cortana didn't work and the task bar didn't work. I tried a SFC scan, The Powershell script and nothing worked. I also wouldn't allow me to create a new account. I found the commmands to add a user by running the command prompt as administrator

The account I created was a local user account with Admin rights

net user username password /ADD

Then i had to make that account administrator

net user /add useraccountname mypassword

net localgroup administrators useraccountname /add

When I rebooted Windows began doing the setup of the account and soon the home screen came up with the same shortcuts as the old accoun.
.

 

[kutyw]

Re: Startmenu and taskbar not working in windows 10

Thanks Raheem.
It worked like magic.

Kuty

 

[Kayranse]

Buckeye, I did everything suggested and nothing worked. I also tried to create a second account and it didn't let me. How did you manage to do it ?
Can you want me through it ? Thankyou so much. Let me know ASAP if possible

 

[Kayranse]

Oh god now I can't even open google chrome ?! Has anyone else experienced this ?? Now my computer truly is useless till we find some kind of fix. Microsoft.... Pathetic I must say

 

[aznewton]

Kudos to Raheem, your fix is spot on. I followed the very easy steps and my start menu tool bar is fully recovered.:smile:
1. Go to the desktop, right click anywhere, hover your mouse over new and then click shortcut
2. When you are making a shortcut it will ask you to type a location. type in "msconfig", click next and then it will ask you what you want to name the shortcut name it anything you want its not imprtant.
3 . A shortcut for msconfig will show up double click it and click on the boot tab at the top. once in the boot tab enable safeboot and the click network underneath it and then click apply then OK it will ask if you want to restart you should restart it
4. Once it is restarted you should go to ms config again and then turn off safe boot and the apply and restart again and hopefully once you have done that things should return to normal

 

[mano k]

CAUTION : Guys this works but do not follow this blindly.....if u normally use pin to log in but forgot Microsoft login password..u r in deep mess...u can't login in safe mode...

 

[RLMuzic]

Omgeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee you are a genious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This works!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!