PC help: Windows 10 Start button not working

Please would any of you PC whizzes be able to point me in the right direction?

I'm trying to fix my mate's computer - the Windows 10 Start button can't be used. I've tried looking up solutions on the interwebs but they haven't worked. Have any of you guys experienced the same thing and found a solution?

Thanks very much. I'm popping back over to "fix the problem" later this afternoon so it'd be top if I had an ace up my sleeve!

Check that the firewall service is running, if it is stopped you loose access to start.

Press windows key and x then select command prompt (administrative)

In the box enter services.msc

Scroll and find the service and make sure it running and not disabled.

If it is disabled punch you friend and say if you want to have no firewall configure it from control panel properly.

Christmas Crackerrkal wrote:Check that the firewall service is running, if it is stopped you loose access to start.

Ah! Could that be it? When I was checking before, I noticed that the Windows firewall was turned off... but I had thought that was a good thing as he has a Mcafee firewall running and I thought it'd clash to have both operating at once?

jawafour wrote:
Christmas Crackerrkal wrote:Check that the firewall service is running, if it is stopped you loose access to start.

Ah! Could that be it? When I was checking before, I noticed that the Windows firewall was turned off... but I had thought that was a good thing as he has a Mcafee firewall running and I thought it'd clash to have both operating at once?

Most likely it is a weird thing I discovered only a few weeks ago, best bet is to enable it and then go to firewall under control panel and set it to not run on the various network states.

The firewall service is used for a few things so disabling it is a crap way of having it not run. It's like using a sledge hammer to put in a nail.

Thanks for the tips, Errkal

. I shall try this out when I pop back there later today. Cheers, dude :toot:

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Had this happen on my wife's laptop a while back. Not just the Windows key, but also the "start menu". The solution was to restore to a previous restore point, you may need to do this.

The same thing happened to my wife, I believe I followed step number 2 listed below...

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/start-men ... windows-10

and it fixed the problem.

I had another look at the computer but couldn't get the problem resolved. Deaths, system restore is the "nuclear" option; my mate's family have been using the PC for about a month since this issue arose and so they may lose some data. Rightey, I'm gonna get my pal to look through those linked solutions later... thanks, hopefully we'll get there.

The start button / menu not working seems to be a fairly well-known issue with Windows 10 and so I wonder why MS hasn't tied this problem down?

YouTube

Hello customer and welcome to advice.

First let me verify the following items

1. Please check your computer is on and switch is in "on" position and light is on, this may be needed on both the CPU and the monitors

2. When Windows boot past the DOS you will see button in bottom left corner, this is called the "Start". Please click the "Start" button.

Please be advice that if you cannot see or press start button, we only deal with Windows customers we are Microsoft Verified Gold Partner in 100 countries. Thank you for your time and have day.

jawafour wrote:I had another look at the computer but couldn't get the problem resolved. Deaths, system restore is the "nuclear" option; my mate's family have been using the PC for about a month since this issue arose and so they may lose some data.

It isn't actually, it is not a system restore but just restoring to a previous Windows point - as far as I'm aware it doesn't touch data. If you run the option it should show you when the last restore point was (it probably made one prior to some Windows update) so data loss will be minimal. If they are really worried, just backup their data to USB and restore it after.

YouTube

System restore only affects some programs and windows files/configurations, it doesn't touch user folders or external disks. The only data loss occurs if programs/people store data in stupid places.

I've used it before when Wifi died completely for no reason, didn't lose any data despite have 100s of Gigs of years worth of music recordings. Turned out to be ZoneAlarm just killing the internet completely for some reason.

Speaking of firewalls, nobody really needs to use one anymore behind windows firewall and a router firewall on top. McCaffee and Norton are both dogshit anyway, they're just overpriced wares bundled in with PCs/laptops with scary paper inserts and obnoxious notifications about UPDATE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION NOW TO SAVE YOUR PC FROM TEH VIRUSES. I find all they do is slow down your machine and false-flag everything.

I just use MSE; Kaspersky, Comodo, BullGuard and even Avast with its stupid voice alerts are better. AVG seems a bit gooseberry fool nowadays, I don't like its interface and browser plugin stuff. MalwareBytes is good for the occasional spyware scan.

I used to use F-Secure, don't know if it's around anymore, but it was a nice simple app that didn't bother you.

Edit: It is, and a neat thing it does besides having excellent anti-virus is it doesn't have a load of other paranoid stuff if you're sensible online IMO and it augments the windows firewall instead of replacing it, freeing up resources on the machine and reducing redundancy: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2468730,00.asp

I'm all for being safe online but when security software does stupid gooseberry fool like this like encourage people to disable the existing firewall it's a pain imo and not worth the performance hit / messing around.

Green Gecko wrote:Speaking of firewalls, nobody really needs to use one anymore behind windows firewall and a router firewall on top. McCaffee and Norton are both dogshit anyway, they're just overpriced wares bundled in with PCs/laptops with scary paper inserts and obnoxious notifications about UPDATE YOUR SUBSCRIPTION NOW TO SAVE YOUR PC FROM TEH VIRUSES. I find all they do is slow down your machine and false-flag everything.

Do routers come with a firewall by default?

Asking for a less tech savvy friend :shifty:

I just have mse and the windows firewall, I never did anything to my Lyncsys router.

YouTube

Yes they do. That's why port forwarding is a thing.

Hooray, I'm safe.

Funny enough my Mom's brand new laptop has just been hit with this issue of the start button not working, she's only had it for two days!

Had similar issue at work. Killed the Cortana process and it worked. Then disabled Cortana in the registry to stop it happening again.

SilentRight wrote:Funny enough my Mom's brand new laptop has just been hit with this issue of the start button not working, she's only had it for two days!

Any Windows updates?

Death's Head wrote:
SilentRight wrote:Funny enough my Mom's brand new laptop has just been hit with this issue of the start button not working, she's only had it for two days!

Any Windows updates?

Her laptop was totally up to date. I tried running the solution I posted earlier in the thread which worked to fix my wifes laptop but this time although if found some errors it just crashed at 92% while trying to repair them. Her laptop seems to be running quite slowly, I may just go ahead and do a reformat and install windows fresh.

SilentRight wrote:
Death's Head wrote:
SilentRight wrote:Funny enough my Mom's brand new laptop has just been hit with this issue of the start button not working, she's only had it for two days!

Any Windows updates?

Her laptop was totally up to date. I tried running the solution I posted earlier in the thread which worked to fix my wifes laptop but this time although if found some errors it just crashed at 92% while trying to repair them. Her laptop seems to be running quite slowly, I may just go ahead and do a reformat and install windows fresh.

I meant any updates immediately prior to the problem occurring, i.e. did an update cause it?

On my son's tablet the touch screen keyboard has disappeared. He had contacted MS because he was unable to update apps from the store or download new ones and after them fiddling with the media creation tool, now he has no touch screen keyboard! Anyone seen this or have any ideas? We will probably need to do a re-install. strawberry floating Windows.

Death's Head wrote:I meant any updates immediately prior to the problem occurring, i.e. did an update cause it?

On my son's tablet the touch screen keyboard has disappeared. He had contacted MS because he was unable to update apps from the store or download new ones and after them fiddling with the media creation tool, now he has no touch screen keyboard! Anyone seen this or have any ideas? We will probably need to do a re-install. strawberry floating Windows.

Ah, ok, well it might have since I set it up for her, ran all the updates and then the next day the start button didn't work.

PC help: Windows 10 Start button not working

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