StartMenuExperienceHost pending removal after update!

[malware]

Hi all,

 

I'm having a strange issue that I'm desperate to wrap my head around!

 

On freshly imaged new Dell W11 24H2 4349 machines, I'm seeing an error in event viewer saying it cannot find windowsstartexperience, however the folder exists in C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy (version 10.0.26100.4202) and the start menu functions as expected. I even noticed this on a machine that wasn't imaged via SCCM, so it's not specific to a corrupt image or anything.

 

If I run Get-AppxPackage *StartMenu* -AllUsers it shows it's installed.
 

 

If I run Windows Update on the machine and allow it to download either 4851 or 4946 there is no start menu and the desktop is blank, you can still open task manager, run a task like msedge, download something and open the download folder and file explorer will open just fine no issue. 
In this state, if I run that same command as above, it shows that StartMenuExperienceHost is not installed or Installed (Pending Removal)? The folder is still in SystemApps but the version (10.0.26100.4768), AppxManifest.xml are all updated so something has changed during the update to that folder.

 

If I get another fresh imaged machine, and before running any Windows Updates I run this command:

Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

 

Then it updates just fine and works, if anyone has any clues that would be awesome!

 

Thank you