It certainly gives Windows 11 a cleaner, modern look, but it also takes a while until you get accustomed to having your Start button in the middle of your screen. Microsoft decided to set a ‘new normal’ by re-designing the Start menu with a floating centered UI.
Now with the release of Windows 11, the most polarizing UI decision (by far) is the Start Menu.
On one side, there are the people excited about the new UI changes, and on the other, there are those unhappy with how the new Windows UI is organized. Problems with AMD cards have been connected to the Start menu not working too, and some users have reported that going to “services.msc” and disabling “AMD External Events Utility” can resolve the issue.With every new Windows iteration that Microsoft releases, there’s bound to be two opposing camps.
Dropbox claims to have addressed this issue in an update released last year, but if you do have Dropbox, it might be worth uninstalling to see if that problem still persists for you.
Go into the System Configuration window just like you did to get into Safe Mode, uncheck the “Safe boot” box, click OK, then reboot your PC, and your Start menu may live again.įix 8: Dropbox, Anti-Virus and AMD Graphics Driversįor a long time Windows 10 users were complaining that Dropbox would clash with the Start menu, blocking certain user account files that were critical to it running properly.
Reboot your PC, and it will start up in Safe Mode in Networking. To boot into Safe Mode from Windows 10, press Win + R, type msconfig, and then in the System Configuration window click the “Boot” tab, check the “Safe boot” box, click “Network,” then “OK.” Fix 7: Boot to Safe Mode with NetworkingĪ lot of users have reported that booting Windows to Safe Mode with Networking, then booting back to normal Windows, can fix a broken Start menu.
Ignore that and reboot your PC to get your Start menu working again. You’ll see a load of processes begin, and when it ends, you’ll probably see a lot of red, alarming-looking writing underneath. Click Start, type powershell, then right-click PowerShell in the search results and click “Run as administrator.” This is a good chance to get acquainted with the PowerShell, which is essentially a supercharged version of the Command Prompt. (It’s almost as if Microsoft was prepared for people to have this problem!) Pinning down the app responsible for the mess can take a while, so there is a convenient command in Windows that lets you reinstall every Windows app simultaneously. Windows apps may have nice features like Skype’s mini-window that lets you talk to people while getting on with other stuff, but they’ve been known to bug out Windows from time to time. To transfer your settings and apps over to the new account, log back in to your old account, then go to “Control Panel -> System -> Advanced system settings.” Click the “Advanced” tab, then under “User Profiles” click “Settings.” Select your newly created account from the list and click “Copy To.” If the Start menu is showing, you’re in business. Tick the checkbox to make it an administrator account, then click “OK.”
Into the box, where “yourname” is what you want to name the account, and “yourpassword” is the password you want for the account. As you’ll discover in the next fix, your Start menu not working could be connected to your Windows account, oddly, so separating your account from your PC startup process can help. Go to “Settings -> Accounts -> Sign-in” options then scroll down to “Privacy” and switch the “Use my sign-in info…” slider to “Off”. If you’ve noticed a pattern of your Start Menu misbehaving each time you have a Windows Update, or simply when you restart your PC, then a couple of people have suggested that this could be the solution. Reboot your PC, and your Start menu should be up and running again. To run the Application Identity Service, press Win + R, type services.msc into the box, then in the Services windows right-click Application Identity and click Start. For the most part you don’t need to touch this, as it generally knows what’s right for your PC, but forcing it to run when you’re experiencing the Start menu problem can help fix them. The Application Identity Service in Windows 10 uses a service called Applocker to decide which applications are and aren’t allowed to run on your PC. Next, click “More details” if you’re in the simple view, then under the “Processes” tab scroll down to “Windows Explorer,” right-click it and click “Restart.” Press Ctrl + Shift + Escape on your keyboard to open the Task Manager. The next simplest thing to try is restarting the Windows Explorer process which is responsible for the Start menu, among plenty of other things, on Windows 10. Double-click “Start” in the right-hand pane and change the “Value” here to 4.