Start Menu issues

[Sheridan]

Anyone else still having random failures of the start menu? We still have them here - where the start button doesn't work and the taskbar is unresponsive. Desktop icons can still be clicked and running applications still work. The usual fix is sign out and back in or sometimes tapping the Windows key several times wakes things up.

 

We removed CSM a while ago in case this was causing the issue (I had my doubts and it does look like CSM wasn't the culprit) and this is happening on various hardware, from 1607 to 1709 versions as well.

 

Users are getting fairly peeved with this bug as well.

[bknaggs]

What type of profiles are your users using?

 

We were having this problem with 1703 (and Classic Shell) and roaming profiles. Moving to local profiles appears to have fixed things here.

Edited March 19, 2018 by bknaggs

[Sheridan]

All local profiles here, and always have been. Never actually used roaming profiles!

[fredbayker]

I think this is related to a corrupt Appdata and/or profile

[mcrompton01]

We still have this issue, mainly on laptops even if wired. Local profiles & folder redirection enabled. Still trying to solve it.

[Arthur]

Have you tried Microsoft's Start Menu Troubleshooter?

 

Download: startmenu.diagcab

 

[ThatBoringBloke]

We have not yet deployed Win 10, but are in testing. I gave up on customising the start menu and opted to simply leave it as it is installed by default, locking everything down via GPO.

 

As for actual shortcuts to programs that users will actually need I copy a local folder to their desktop via a logon script and have all of the shortcuts in there all neatly arranged.

 

Users can go searching the start menu if they want, but everything they need is on their desktop for them in a folder called School Apps.

 

Like I said, still in testing though, but has saved me hours of pain and suffering trying to get a start menu to work the way I want it to.

[Sheridan]

Have you tried Microsoft's Start Menu Troubleshooter?

 

Download: startmenu.diagcab

 

 

I haven't tried this yet as its so random - different users on different PCs at different times! Sometimes they can be working for a while and the start menu dies, or it fails almost as soon as they're logged in.

 

Like many aspects of W10 I'm firefighting rather than being able to find solutions! If I had a PC that regularly failed I could try the troubleshooter but its not as clear cut as that. We use redirected Start Menus but don't customise the tiles (it doesn't work reliably anyway)

[bknaggs]

All local profiles here, and always have been. Never actually used roaming profiles!

 

Odd. I've been using Windows 10 with Classic Shell since 1511 and have never had the freezing problem. In that time I've been using a local profile. It was only in September we moved to Windows 10 for everyone with version 1703 where the freezing problems started. Pretty much everyone else here was on a roaming profile with redirected appdata, desktop, start menu, downloads and (IE) favourites and the problem appeared to start once people had logged into more than one PC. Something was obviously not happy with the roaming profile whether it was corrupting or just an incompatibility from one PC to another.

 

If you've not been using roaming profiles that clearly isn't the case for you. Are you using folder redirection for any parts of the profile?

[AlanD]

This is not anything to do with meltdown updates and new microcode that Intel produced and then withdrew in January is it? Which causes...expected lockups....and is delivered either via firmware updates - or Microsoft updates....

[mcrompton01]

Odd. I've been using Windows 10 with Classic Shell since 1511 and have never had the freezing problem. In that time I've been using a local profile. It was only in September we moved to Windows 10 for everyone with version 1703 where the freezing problems started. Pretty much everyone else here was on a roaming profile with redirected appdata, desktop, start menu, downloads and (IE) favourites and the problem appeared to start once people had logged into more than one PC. Something was obviously not happy with the roaming profile whether it was corrupting or just an incompatibility from one PC to another.

 

If you've not been using roaming profiles that clearly isn't the case for you. Are you using folder redirection for any parts of the profile?

 

Sorry to hijack, we have the issues described above and customise the tile and redirect the appdata folder, startmenu, documents, pictures etc. We found our desktops are fine running 1703 when we upgrade a machine to 1709 it freezes or use a mobile device such as a laptop...

 

RE: Metdown, this has been happening to us on and off since September.

Edited March 20, 2018 by mcrompton01

[ReadTheNetwork]

It's not an antivirus problem is it? Doing a scan during logon or something? What AV are you using?

[Sheridan]

We've been having this problem since well before the meltdown updates - on all of the versions of 10. We did suspect CSM at first but its doing it on machines that have had it removed and have never had it installed.

 

We use Sophos AV here, can't see any evidence pointing to that - it can hang 20-30 minute after logging in with no apparent reason, its not just on login for us.

[ReadTheNetwork]

Could you try turning off the live behavior monitoring and see how that goes for a while?

[bknaggs]

It's been happening since September for us as well so not related to Meltdown or any related patches.

 

When it happens there is no definite link to anything in use at the time. Sometimes it can happen straight away without running any applications and other times it happens after using the PC for ages. The only thing I could definitely link to it occurring was a roaming profile used on more than one PC.

 

We also use Sophos AV and I can't say that there is a link there.

@mcrompton01 our student accounts started off roaming with redirected appdata, then moved to roaming with no redirected appdata and then were changed again to local with no redirected appdata. Appdata redirection was removed due to incompatibility with Adobe CC programs rather than as a possible fix for any Explorer freezes.

[RLR]

There was another thread that seems similar to this: http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows-10/193394-start-menu-issues.html

 

I mentioned my way round it which:

 

I had a similar issue. I imaged about 20 laptops all with the same image. It seemed about half of them wouldn't let users open the start menu where the half it was fine. I spent a few days trying to figure out what it might have been. Tried removing GPO's one at a time, changing registry and any other ideas I found on Google. I never found out why this happened but I re-imaged them all with MDT in the same way you are (my install.wim has had most of the built in window apps removed). I'm also using a new command to set a specific Start Menu and Task Bar:

 

PowerShell.exe -Command Import-StartLayout -LayoutPath \\Network\Path\to\StartLayout.xml -MountPath c:\

 

The startlayout.xml:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W0p...ew?usp=sharing

 

After imaging all the laptops again with this it seems to be working.

 

Another odd thing I found is I used the same imaging task sequence for Dell Computers and the HP Laptops. The HP laptops are the only machines that had the start menu issue.

 

I'm wondering if it has something to do with windows app being removed from the wim file. Have you done this?

 

Other people mentioned Sophos was the issue so might be worth removing it to see if it works.

[mcrompton01]

We finally figured out the reason ours stopped working... taken from out helpdesk ticket:

 

Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\System\Troubleshooting and Diagnostics

 

Name:

Diagnostics: Configure scenario execution level.

 

We did have it set to Disabled - but that's what breaks it. Ideally we would have it as Not Configured, but as we already have configured it, we instead need to set it to Enable, with the option "Detection and Troubleshooting Only" (although either option works, the more restrictive one is preferred).

 

Hope this helps someone.