Windows 10 Pro - no menu, no Cortana, no Action Center, no Edge

[crossy]

Powered up the Windows PC yesterday and got a nasty shock: the Menu button does nothing when left clicked, similarly the Action Center button in the task bar does zip, Cortana button also does nada; the Edge browser launches, but stays on the screen (blank) for a couple of seconds before closing down. I'm also getting error messages from a Skype host (which I'm pretty sure I didn't install - thanks Microsoft) on system close down.

I can right-click on the menu button and get things done, but obviously the lack of Edge and Start Menu is a major cramp on use - although Chrome can easily be used instead of Edge.

I've Googled my fingers red and tried the following:
1. sfc /scannow - reported nothing
2. dism check .. etc - nothing strange there either
3. Fun piece of PowerShell to restore apps - that did nothing I could see
4. Created a new admin user and tried to use that - this had the same problem as my main account, so I'm assuming I've got a system issue rather than a user one
5. Checked for hardware failures - none I could see
6. Done a system restore to a previous checkpoint - in case a bad update was the cause, but that solved nothing.

Anyone got any ideas?

At present I'm left with either doing a restore of my OS drive (from a backup I took at the beginning of the month), or using Microsoft's "Troubleshooting" suggestion which basically appears to reinstall the OS, but leave my files in place (which means I get to reinstall and reconfigure all my apps - which isn't an appealing prospect).

[virtuo]

I've heard of the "edge closing right away" issue, but not the unresponsive start/action centre.

I know you've probably already seen and tried, but some people have success with the solution here: http://www.tenforums.com/browsers-em...opening-2.html


If that doesn't work, I fear your only options are what you have already listed - restore from backup with fingers crossed, or go for a reinstall.

[crossy]

Thanks virtuo, yes unfortunately I'd already tried that.

Things are getting more confused. I've got separate partitions for OS, Apps and User data, so I figured "what the heck, I'll just recover the OS partition from a backup from when it was working fine" (actually beginning of the month) and accept that any apps installed this month will need to be reinstalled, and updates reapplied.

So I Acronis TrueImage restored C and ended up with exactly the same problems! Actually, worse since the Store icon disappeared as well. EDIT: Actually I just spotted that my Raptr stats got reset - dammit!

Windows was working before I installed Fedora, but that was on a completely different disk, so I can't see how the other OS install could screw up Windows in this subtle way - a completely busted install I could understand in that circumstance.

So I'm thinking that restoring OS & Apps is the next logical step, and failing that a whole machine restore from my Acronis TrueImage backup.

I hate Windows!

[stevie lee]

last year I had a similar problem of some MS programs like Edge, the store, and start menu not working or even the icons showing up. windows was also very slow, programs took a few mins to open.
going back a restore point or 2 usually fixed it.
then one day it didn't.

so reinstalled win 10 from scratch again. worked perfect and stable for a week. then started doing the same again.

didn't manage to narrow down what caused it though. had a few things going wrong at the time.

first was the lightning storm that caused my SSD to have 22,000+ bad sectors. windows was stored on this.
couldn't restore to a backup windows, because I was in the middle of backing up and the lightning killed my backup drive
SSD kept disconnecting on the SATA port, cant swap to different one on mobo, the graphics is blocking 2 of them. SSD works perfect in an USB enclosure though.

so I swapped to one of my mechanical drives, but windows still lost the icons and start menu. even from a fresh ISO download

then it started BSODing twice a day with completely different errors each time. drivers, sound, network bad kernel errors mainly.
then up popped one vaguely relating to avast antivirus.
so I uninstalled that and the BSODs stopped immediately. even the icons worked again and have done for 4 months.


so. its either the C drive, sata cable, mobo port, antivirus/firewall blocking some needed drivers or windows kernels from loading (?), or some of your drivers are not fully compatible.
that's as far as I got figuring mine out.