The problem

We all know it, the small but uber important Windows start-menu button. Without it, controlling the computer is near impossible, even for experienced tech-guys. Although it seems unlikely that such a simple button will just stop working all of a sudden, that's exactly what seems to be happening for more and more people (including me).

The depths of the internet provide some solutions that might or might not work, depending on the circumstances. In my case none of them did the trick, but I will still give you a quick overview. If you are impatient and looking for the answer that actually did solve the problem for me, scroll down to the last section.

Simple solutions

Logout / Login

Quite obvious, I'll admit, but it seems to do the trick in some very mild cases. How to log out without the start button? Press Alt+F4 and use the drop-down menu.

Be careful with accepting the outcome of this method though. It seems there is some chance that the start menu will work at first, but after shutting down the computer and logging in the next day, the problem persists.

Restart explorer.exe

The vanilla way of dealing with hanging applications in windows, and it might actually work. In my opinion though this is a short-term solution at best. The problem will almost certainly return.

How do I do this?

1. Kill explorer.exe:
   Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc, click More Details, change to the Details tab, right-click explorer.exe, select End task.
   ->Make sure all programs are closed before you do this!

1. Restart explorer.exe:
   While still in the task manager, click File, then Run new task .

Enter explorer.exe, check Create this task with administrative privileges and hit Enter. The task-menu should reappear, and hopefully your beloved start-button is back online. Keep reading if it is not.

Reinstall Windows Apps

This might solve the problem permanently, but the process is a little more challenging for non-tech-guys. Note that in my case this approach made things worse instead of fixing anything, so be prepared.

1. Open the Task Manager by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc.
2. As above, click File, Run new ask, but this time instead of explorer.exe, enter powershell.
3. Make sure the checkbox is checked and hit Enter. A new window named Administrator: Windows PowerShell should pop-up.
4. Enter the following command exactely and hit Enter.
   Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

A lot of green stuff should be happening, followed by some text in red. The consensus in all forums seems to be that the red text can be ignored. If the task is done (you are back to the blinking cursor in the command prompt), you can close the PowerShell and restart the computer with fingers crossed.

Proposed solution

Because none of the above methods worked for me, I decided to create a new user and move as many of my settings and configurations as possible. Newly created user profiles do not seem to suffer from a corrupted start-button. Unfortunately, this process involves quite a bit of work. I will not go into too much detail here. Feel free to ask questions if you need help.

The method in short:

1. Create new temporary user (member of administrator group)
2. Log in as this temporary user
3. Copy all the application settings and files that have nothing to do with the start menu from the original to the temporary account.
4. Delete the original account and all its files
5. Create a new account with the same name the original account had
6. Log in as that new user with the original name
7. Copy all files and settings we previously copied from the temporary account to the new account
8. Delete the temporary account

Like this we end up with a fresh account that has a working start menu and that has the exact same name as the profile we started off with.

How to create new users without start button

Press Win+R to open the Run dialog, enter lusrmgr.msc and click OK. This will open the Microsoft Management Console with the Local Users and Groups Snap-In.

To create new users, click once on the Users folder on the left to open it, then right-click in the middle column and select New User...

Remember to add the user to the group of administrators after creation (right-click on the newly created user, then select Properties, then go to the Member of tab and Add... the desired group.

Which files to copy

This is the tricky part. We want to copy as much as possible, but without copying the files that are responsible for the corruption of the start menu. Make sure you are logged in as the destination user and that you have administrative privileges as this user. By the way, pressing Win+E opens the file explorer...

Safe to copy

All the default files should be safe to copy. These are all your documents, pictures, music and so on.

These folders are usually located at _C:\Users<username>_. If there are any folders which start with a dot "." like e.g. .cisco, you can copy them as well.

Not so safe to copy

Basically you could stop at this point, log into the new account and manually reconfigure everything. If you are an impatient tech-guy like me however and you would rather copy application settings as well, this is the way to go:
All the program settings like e.g. your Firefox or Thunderbird profiles are located in a hidden folder called AppData. To be able to see this folder go to the View tab in the file explorer and make sure the checkbox Hidden items is activated.

As a rule of thumb I'd say only consider the folders Local and Roaming and do not touch anything inside the LocalLow folder.

Inside those folders, copy everything that looks like a program that you remember installing, like Mozilla or Thunderbird. Do NOT copy TileDataLayer or anything else that sounds Windows-y.

Questions?

Feel free to ask questions if you need help in a specific step of the process, I will try to answer as best and fast as I can.

Comments?

You know a better way? I made a mistake? Go ahead and let me know!