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DominicFlag for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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1903 Feature Update for Windows 10 successful but Start button not working, Windows unusable

Feature Update for Windows 10 successful but Start button unusable
Avatar of Sajid Shaik M
Sajid Shaik M
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did you restart after update ?
Avatar of Dominic

ASKER

I have recently attempted to complete Feature Update for number of our Windows 10 PCs and last three attempts I am ending with the following problem:
Windows 10 reports a success and you can verify that 1903 is installed BUT Windows Start button is nonoperational.
Clicking causes no change as the start menu will not open.
When I checked in the EventViewer each click is causing app crash for StartMenuExperienceHost.exe
I can only right click Start button to say search for the application I need to run but that's it.
All computers are configured to work in a domain.
Interestingly when I load local user profile (not AD one) and Start button will be working well.
Back to the AD user and Start button does not work.

Now , more on the topic:
when I attempted to upgrade first machine it was Windows FU 1803 - it was failing to work when I performed an upgrade to FU 1903
So I restored a working image of FU1803 and attetmpted to perform an upgrade to FU 1809 and Start button worked well.
Another attempt to turn this FU 1809 to FU 1903 and Start button does not work.

At that stage I decided to create a new AD user and spent a day transferring all data , documents , user settings, preferences from the old AD user to the newly created one.


So looks I am well stuck with all my attempts to bring our Windows 10 systems to FU 1903, which I need to do for quite a few users. Creating a new user each time for each FU attempt is just not possible due to time constraints and too cumbersome to do.

Previous FU attempts I performed earlier this year were all successful with no issues.

Since I came across this problem I tried the following methods:
- performing FU via Windows Update Assistant (online download)
- performing FU via Windows iso file (ISO downloaded from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10)
- performing FU via Windows Update Assistant (online download) where the attempt was made using a local (non AD) admin user
All methods failed the same way.

Does anyone know what this problem is all about? Something to do with Windows user profile?
the same issue I faced... but after 3 or 4 restarts, it fixed automatically... it's my personal experience.
Avatar of Dominic

ASKER

Yes I restarted after the update. Number of times - the issue at present is making Windows unusable as you can really only rely on Search but even this does not warranty that app found via Search will actually launch. Some apps will not open this way.
You can only really use apps that had already been pinned to the taskbar.
When you open Task Manager the Start process mentioned on some discussion groups is not even running. Attempt to run it via Run via right click at start button also does not help as it will not get Start process running.
There is a known issue with KB4517389 and the start menu in the current Windows update. MS instruction is to roll back that patch if you see it, or the whole update. They are promising to fix it next update.
Avatar of Dominic

ASKER

I can confirm KB4517389 patch has got something to do with this. I was able to test the following: did a FU to 1903 which resulted in no Start button, then removed KB4517389 and suddenly Start button returned. So I decided to see what will happen if I reinstall KB4517389.
I reinstalled and it turned out that Start button was operational BUT what stopped working instead:
  • right click on pinned taskbar apps no longer brings up pinned documents
  • quick search is no longer operational
I am investigating further...
Can you evaluate what's the difference between
  1. rolling back the patch
and
[list=]rolling back the update[/list]
Sorry, I really am unaware what's the difference between the two.
Avatar of Dominic

ASKER

I spoke too soon - after blocking update KB4517389 other update was detected and installed, namely: KB4524147.
Surprise surprise after restarting :
Start menu button - working OK,
Right click on start button working,
Right click on Word , Excel and other apps for pinned documents - NOT WORKING
Search - NOT WORKING
Not sure about the cause, may still be some residual from the patch. However easiest fix is shift+right click on a file. Choose "open with", and the appropriate program. Make sure "Always use..." is checked and OK.
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