Fix: Start Menu and CORTANA aren't working

system · April 25, 2024, 10:05am

Originally published at: Fix: Start Menu and CORTANA aren't working

Microsoft released its latest and most-awaited version of Windows, called Windows 10, on July 29, 2015. There were some major changes in the latest OS based on GUI and services. Almost 14 million people upgraded their previous Windows versions to the latest one within a timespan of just 24 hours. At the same time, people…

eriklanglois · January 8, 2016, 11:12am

Does MS not have a fix for this??? Its been going on for months!!!

eriklanglois · January 8, 2016, 11:11am

None of these work for me at all!!! This is really frustrating!

artelltyx · December 29, 2015, 10:00am

I usually open the task manager then run new task (since windows+R won’t run) then open msconfig, then I set the start up into normal startup ( load all drivers and services ) since mine always defaults to selective startup, after clicking OK, proceed to restart PC directly, then the error usually gone. Hope this would help anyone.

rickyoung · November 23, 2015, 7:06pm

Kevin, with the error message on the screen, I can’t get into Start to uninstall avast.

karrows · October 28, 2015, 5:55am

Does it works when Cortana is disabled? How to Disable Cortana on Windows

edzachary · October 28, 2015, 12:26am

Never had Avast, so that doesn’t help me. Tried 2 and 3, neither did a thing. Tried #4 and found no errors. I also have the Start button turning pink when I put the cursor on it, the error message has changed from a gray background to a red background, and I think the BSOD is now the RSOD.

karrows · September 16, 2015, 3:06am

You can install AVG/Norton. avast! is known to cause this.

martinbrant · September 15, 2015, 11:23pm

Step 1 worked for me and I had AVAST installed. Once rebooted Windows did a load of updates so maybe the AV was blocking these somehow? Does anyone know if it’s safe to install some AV again now? Is AVAST OK to reinstall or should I go for something else?

avik · May 29, 2016, 4:27pm

Why to Uninstall the Antivirus which you have paid for…Here’s the best solution when the Start menu and Cortana stops working for Windows 10…

Open run command using Windows key On Keyboard and R.
In the run command type command Control Userpasswords2(Note: Userpasswords2 should be combined).
Add new account and give admin rights
Sign out from the Current account and go to new account and check in new account Start menu and Cortana Works :)… Wait ?
But what happened to your files and apps in new account…Are they all lost? No, they are still there
Go to Local Disk C: Users, Find your User name(E.g. JohnS). Open the JohnS user account from Local Disk C: and copy all the folders into your new account you have created
Get all your files and app back as it was before…Wait(But what about the previous account, which is not working?
Go to Control Panel, User accounts, Manage Another account, Delete the non working account keeping files…
Use your New account with Start menu and Cortana Working

Thanks
Avi K
Microsoft Level 2 Escalation Engineer

packmentality · March 10, 2016, 7:35pm

Thank you. There are a lot of posts that try to explain how to fix this problem, but this post is the best. Why? because it worked! Running powershell did the trick for me.

roberttweetgerianifeoluwa · February 10, 2016, 9:29am

Worked for me! Bingo!

keneb · January 20, 2016, 10:03pm

Method 2 worked for several minutes and now doesn’t. Compounding this I have ROG G74SX where sometimes Icons don’t load and my calculator key doesn’t calculate. I’ve tried several things and have had no success with any attempt other than changing the keyboard driver. Now I can’t get the old keyboard driver to uninstall that isn’t there and I can’t get the new driver to install because the old one won’t uninstall. But I do have a new standard PS/2 keyboard driver that installed out of the blue.

karrows · January 8, 2016, 7:48pm

Please submit this as a question on http://equestions.net for help troubleshooting it. Thanks

rickyoung · November 23, 2015, 7:18pm

With the error message on the screen, I can’t get into Start menu so unable to uninstall avast. Went through task manager, but that didn’t work.

eugen · May 8, 2016, 6:47pm

u are de best!

stechytse · March 31, 2016, 10:34pm

My pc also has this problem, Taskbar right click stop working, Cortana not functioning. It does not happen when it starts up, but every time, after a while, it will stop functioning.

I found the another solution … worth of a try

I didnt want to bother to edit a registry, but schedule a killing every 15 mins. seems to be working perfectly. Well it is a short fix anyway, but it works…

I tried the powshell script, kill cortana, kill explorer, sfc/scannow, reindex search, still no good

However, Killing Runtime Broker is a true fix (it will come back after a while). But then if the machine hangs again, it will fix it from my task scheduler bat file to kill that.

graysonhenderson · March 11, 2016, 11:46am

I FOUND THE SOLUTION!!!

bear with me guys. But none of the above worked for me and I found this suggestion on a different forum. ready?

UNINSTALL DROPBOX!!!

I know. It shouldn’t be that simple and it shouldn’t be that program, but this fixed it for me!! Hope this saves you guys hours of freaking out!

arbuilder · March 11, 2016, 5:00am

I love you. Did this and it immediately started updating. Restarted windows and good to go. I hate windows so much but 20+ yrs of using an os is hard to overcome (I truly miss dos.) And Bill Gates is an asshole.

keneb · January 22, 2016, 4:26am

thank you, I will try that, so far today incredibly my start menu has functioned properly all day. 1 down I hope, thank you for your help and suggestions.