Fixing the non-working Start button by trying internet recommendations and finding our own solution.

On one of our Windows computers, we encountered an issue: the Start button stopped working. Clicking it did nothing, restarting the system didn’t help. We searched for recommended solutions online and ultimately resolved the problem.

Before making changes, we strongly recommend creating a system restore point. Instructions are at the end of the article.

 

1) Run system file checker (SFC and DISM)

 

Right-click the Start button (this often works even if left-clicking doesn’t) and select Terminal (Admin):

In the terminal, type the command to run the system file checker and press Enter:

Sfc /scannow

The utility will check the integrity of system files and repair damage if any.

After it has finished its work, reboot the system and check if the issue with the Start button has disappeared.

 

If it hasn’t, try restoring the system to working order differently. Run Terminal as an administrator again and enter the command:

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth 

The DISM utility will access Windows Update and, if necessary, download the files necessary to fix the damaged components.

When finished restart the computer and check that the Start button works.

 

2) Adjust registry permissions for the User Shell Folders key 

 

We find it convenient to do it with Reg Organiser, but you can use standard Regedit. Open this key in the Registry Editor. To run it, open Terminal (Admin) and run:

regedit.exe

Go to the specified key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders.

Select the Permissions command for it:

 

In the window that appears, click Advanced:

 

Tick Replace all child object permission… and click Disable inheritance and click OK in the window:

Restart the system and check if the Start button works.

 

3) Changing the EnableXAMLStartMenu registry parameter

 

In some cases, changing the EnableXAMLStartMenu registry parameter located in the key helps:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced

Run Reg Organizer or regedit.exe. Open the above key and create a REG_DWORD type parameter with the name EnableXAMLStartMenu and a value of 1. If this parameter already exists, change it to 1. If you have Reg Organizer installed, Tweaks tool  allows you to easily change this registry parameter, here’s how to activate it:

 

Restart the system again and check if the Start button works.

 

4) Try creating a new user account

 

Create a new administrator account. See if the Start button works in it. We won’t go into the details of how to do this here, there are guides to how to create a new account on Windows.

If it worked, you don’t necessarily need to move to a new account and scrap your current account. You can do a reactivation of your primary account, making all the built-in applications that are in it re-installed. To do this, run the command in Terminal (Admin). Type this command into the search engine first if you want exact instructions on how to run the right way:

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

5)What worked for us: Modifying permissions for the HEY-CLASSES-ROOT registry key

 

In our case, nothing help to restore the functionality of the Start button. It remained unresponsive to clicks.

 

Remember: for the Start button to work correctly, the process StartMenuExperienceHost.exe must be present in the list of processes.

In our system, it was missing. You can check this by opening Task Manager (Ctrl + Shift + ESC), then navigating to the Details section in Windows 10 or Processes in Windows 11:

 

If you do not see this process in the list, that is the reason malfunction. Moreover, manually starting it from the path C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\StartMenuExperienceHost.exe did not yield any results.

The event logs  (eventvwr.msc) only recorded an error message related to the StartMenuExperienceHost.exe application.

 

Further investigation revealed that the failure of StartMenuExperienceHost.exe occurred because it could not access a registry value located in the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT key.

 

Why couldn’t it gain access? We opened the permissions window, but this time for the root key HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, and immediately noticed that its access rights were not the same as those of other root keys. The group ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES had been granted access rights on other keys:

 

However, HKEY-CLASSES-ROOT was missing this group from its list:

 

Strange, isn’t it? On other systems, the group ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES is granted to read rights in HKEY-CLASSES-ROOT, which can be easily verified if you have another system available.

 

Therefore, we will add the group ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES to the permissions list for HKEY-CLASSES-ROOT. This is done as follows:

 

1. Click Add.
2. Enter ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES.
3. Click Check Names and ensure that the group appears underlined, indicating that the name you entered matches one of the existing groups.
4. Click OK.
5. OK again in the parent window. The item ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES should be added.  Set to read-only:

 

The Start button began to function normally!

 

Do not rush to add other entries to this list. It is sufficient to add only ALL APPLICATION PACKAGES. Adding other groups, even they exist in other root keys, may lead to incorrect operation!

 

How to Create a System Restore Point (before making any changes!)

 

Press the key combination Win + R to open the Run.

Type the command systempropertiesprotection and press Enter:

 

Or if you have access to search in the system you can simply type “create restore point” and select the first matching item.

 

Click Create. Enter a name for the restore point and click Create in the new window:

 

Now, in any issues, you can revert the changes made to the registry.

Good luck with fixing the Start button!