Windows 10 - Start Menu and Cortana not working? Fix Here! Hopefully

[filikon]

Worked for me

Many thanks

 

[chriswang88]

This worked for me. Thanks so much. Previously the same problem will be gone when I rebooted. This time it was recurring, till I tried your suggestion. Best Rgds,CHRIS

 

[LGs Gigi]

no need to uninstall anything, i also run Avast and all i did was do this..

crt alt del to bring up task manager
click file
run new task
enter msconfig w/admin privileges
go to boot section, click on safeboot and network
ok to restart
after restart just repeat the process but unclick the safe boot square in msconfig
restart again..
you should be good.

This worked for me, thanks so much! I had just watched a 10 minute YouTube video about this which involved steps way above my comfort level. I do have a paid subscription to Avast and I wasn't looking forward to uninstalling and reinstalling as some had mentioned.

 

[Phil Oneacre]

I don't have avast but I do Norton IS. Norton claims they are not the problem. Anyone have anything?

 

[Chris Raisin]

Everyone seems to think this problem is Virus Checker related, but what they all forget is that they ALL rebooted!

Rebooting always fixes the problem (temporarily). Virus checkers have nothing to do with the freezing up of these two Window 10 features.

I used to be an avid "Avast" user, but now I find that having Avast just adds unnecessary overhead.
"Defender" is fine for virus checking and (being internal to the system) has minimal overhead.
(I still do use SuperAntiSpyware though since I paid for it and it works beautifully under Windows 10...and it is the best for Spyware).

I am investigating an easy fix to the "Start Menu/Cortana Freeze" problem and will get back to you once I find it.

 

[Trees]

This issue popped up for me this past Saturday. Tried the Foxxbatt workaround, but no success. The Microsoft forum thread below was closed at 142 pages.
Critical Error ? Start menu and Cortana aren?t working. - Microsoft Community

A new one was started, and as of today is at 46 pages.
http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...-d088-4246-b4b0-50cf7c683ed0?tm=1449000828631

I tried the Safe Mode with Networking option, but no success. My system is running Windows 10 version 1511 with the most recent updates.

I've seen reference to AV or Dropbox as possible sources, but apparently not a definitive root cause.

Any other options I should try? I can uninstall AV (Norton Security) first, and see if that makes a difference. If not, then will try the same with Dropbox. But if possible would rather avoid if there is an option that does not require app uninstalls.

 

[Theo van Dyk]

This worked !!!!!!!! You guys are brilliant.
I also only entered safe mode and restart and back to normal boot. Perfect......

Thanks

 

[Bernard_W]

Re: Windows 10 - Start Menu and Cortana not working? Real Fix Here

If you run Avast anti virus and have still the problem that the startmenu does not work than read this. After months of searching and trying I found the culprit. Apparently it is related to Avast and not a fault of Microsoft. If you disable the binary access during startup scan then the problem disappears. You can do this by checking off next setting :

This is lowering the level of protection but this is only effective if you do have already a virus on your computer.

 

[Adrian Mwangudza]

Heres a video touching on another aspect of cortana,voice activation.Maybe that could help
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_Dv1khYk

 

[tutungzone]

**** FWIW ****

People, I have been dealing with this issue for a long time, and you will find the issue most times as soon as you run the re-register command. If you are one of those admins that like to disable the windows firewall service... don't. Turn the service back on and set to automatic. Cortona will start working immediately. There is some dependency with the firewall service and Cortona search it seems.

 

[Carlson Roberts]

hi guys i just wanted to add to this fix, since i had this really annoying issue for several days and none of the suggested fixes ever worked for me.

what i did was i created another second microsoft account then i logged into to it and logged back out and "walla!" cortana and search were bak working again.
let me know if this works for you!