neither Start Menu opening nor any of the settings in windows 10

[chhotemia]

So sorry for posting it here. i am unable to understand the place where i should have posted it. admins can relocate it to appropriate place. thanks.

 

hi friends.

 

as far as i can check, no new update has been installed in last 2 days on my system running Windows 10 22H2 build 19045.5487. no hardware is changed too.

 

today suddenly the Start Menu started misbehaving / is not opening. if it opens after 2-3 clicks, it closes itself.

 

It is not working in any of the user accounts including admin.

 

none of the settings in windows 10 is opening. it shows the load window with setting icon in middle and then it closes itself.

 

i tried sfc and then dism methods told by many forums and ms staff. sfc showed some error and dism said all files replaced successfully.

 

i tried explorer restart.

 

i tried start menu package refresh method using dism told by many forums and ms staff.

 

i tried index rebuild too.

 

i created a new admin user but it is not working in that as well.

 

checked but no updates available for display.

 

no key on the keyboard is stuck. rather it is working fine.

mouse too is working fine.

 

ms settings is not getting open if run from admin powershell / run.

it shows the following error in powershell :

start ms-settings:
start : This command cannot be run due to the error: Unknown error (0x80040904).
At line:1 char:1
+ start ms-settings:
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (:) [Start-Process], InvalidOperationException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : InvalidOperationException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.StartProcessCommand

 

updates is not getting open.

 

if fact. no settings in windows is getting open. it just shows a window with settings icon in the center and then it gets closed.

 

paint / ms office / vlc / mpc works but regular media player shows error like

 

 

whatsapp only shows this window

 

it appears most of the windows apps are not working as calculator opens with its logo in the middle and then closes.

 

i have run error check on windows disk and it showed no error.

 

What could be the reason / options to correct? the option to reinstall is always there but is there anything else i missed? thanks.

 

PS: all these are working fine on windows sandbox.

 

Edited Monday at 11:00 AM by chhotemia

[TrojanK]

2 hours ago, chhotemia said:

all these are working fine on windows sandbox.

Hi chhotemia

What happens in safe mode?

[CrAKeN]

@chhotemia Maybe you can use Event Viewer (if it's working in your case) for assisting you in what is going on with the apps/system. Just hit Win+R, then write "eventvwr.exe" (without quotes) and hint ENTER.

 

In the left panel expand "Windows Logs" and leave Event Viewer running. Then try to open any of the apps with issues or click the start menu button.

 

After the error occurs, immediately go back to Event Viewer and click on "Application" and/or "System" under "Windows Logs." In the right panel, check for any new entries describing some error with the app/system, under any of these logs.

 

Finally, use some antivirus tool to scan your system offline, such as Emsisoft Emergency Kit, to make sure there is no possible infection.

[chhotemia]

problem solved after system restore but browsers stopped working and firefox didn't it let me uninstall so removed registry entries and manually deleted it. removed crome and installed it. whatever was not working started working on it. will come to know in due course if everything is working fine. thanks friends for the replies and help.

 

 

2 hours ago, TrojanK said:

Hi chhotemia

What happens in safe mode?

didn't reach till that point.

 

1 hour ago, CrAKeN said:

@chhotemia Maybe you can use Event Viewer (if it's working in your case) for assisting you in what is going on with the apps/system. Just hit Win+R, then write "eventvwr.exe" (without quotes) and hint ENTER.

 

In the left panel expand "Windows Logs" and leave Event Viewer running. Then try to open any of the apps with issues or click the start menu button.

 

After the error occurs, immediately go back to Event Viewer and click on "Application" and/or "System" under "Windows Logs." In the right panel, check for any new entries describing some error with the app/system, under any of these logs.

 

Finally, use some antivirus tool to scan your system offline, such as Emsisoft Emergency Kit, to make sure there is no possible infection.

i tried few options but couldn't identify the exact cause. already using bitdefender total security in it.

Edited Monday at 04:07 PM by chhotemia

[TrojanK]

13 hours ago, chhotemia said:

didn't reach till that point.

In case you don't already know..

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2304-boot-into-safe-mode-windows-10-a.html#option1

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2294-boot-advanced-startup-options-windows-10-a.html#option2

[chhotemia]

On 2/18/2025 at 11:28 AM, TrojanK said:

In case you don't already know..

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2304-boot-into-safe-mode-windows-10-a.html#option1

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/2294-boot-advanced-startup-options-windows-10-a.html#option2

so nice of you mate for the links. i know about this. in fact the system restore didn't work in normal mode so i booted into safe mode and then iirc it was troubleshoot and then system restore which completed successfully and then reboot. since i was trying system restore option, i didn't think of checking it in safe mode if start menu was working. i was too stressed as i don't have much time for check everything / passwords / files etc. and then reinstall and activate it. thanks again.