UPDATE: June 21, 2016 – Microsoft has released a free repair tool for the Windows 10 START menu.  You can read very brief explanation and download it here.

UPDATE: Jan 19 2018 – If your issue is that typing searches into the START menu is very slow or sluggish, the easy solution is HERE.

If you have been through the typical fixes for the annoying problem of having your Windows 10 Start Button not working, then this is the page for you.  In case you are just starting to work on this problem, you might be interested inwindows10-no-start-menu-modern-apps our most popular page of 2015 which contains four very common fixes for this problem: “Windows 10 Start Menu and Modern Apps Do Not Function” .

This page explains a more complex, but certainly not difficult solution, to the Windows 10 Start Button does not function problem.  The premise is that your “Tile Data Layer” database is corrupt and so all you have to do is copy that database from another profile:

Step 1: Create New Profiles

  1. Login to windows (in your normal and broken Windows profile)
  2. Right-click the Start button, then Command Prompt (Admin)
    • If that fails try Press WINDOWS key + X Key and select Command Prompt (Admin)
  3. Enter the following commands (one at a time and press ENTER after each one) in the Command Prompt window
    .
    net user TempAdmin1 “password1” /add
    net user TempAdmin2″“password2” /add
    net localgroup administrators “TempAdmin2” /add
    .
  4. Sign out (you can try CNTL+ALT+DEL and select SIGN OUT if you are stuck)

STEP 2: Copy the TileDataLayer Database:

  1. Login to the TempAdmin1 account using password password1
  2. Logout (do not SWITCH USERS)
  3. Login to the TempAdmin2 account, using password2
  4. Click START and select File Explorer, click the VIEW tab (at the top of the screen), then check on Hidden Items
  5. Double click your way to  C:\Users\TempAdmin1\AppData\Local\TileDataLayer
    • Click CONTINUE when you see the security prompt
  6. Right-click the folder DATABASE and select COPY from the context menu
  7. Double click your way to (C:\Users\<YOUR USERNAME>\AppData\Local\TileDataLayer)
  8. Right-click the DATABASE folder and Rename to DATABASE.DelMe
  9. Right-click on an blank area in that folder, and select PASTE
  10. Reboot your Windows 10 PC and then sign into the user that had the problem

If your Windows 10 Start Button is working, you are done, otherwise proceed to step 3 below.

STEP 3: Reregister the AppPackages – NOT ALWAYS REQUIRED

There are reports from several people that the simply replacing the TileDataLayer Database did not resolve the Windows 10 Start Button not working problem.  If this is your situation, login as the user with the failing Windows 10 Start Button and run through the following process

  1. Press WINDOWS Key + R on your keyboard
    • if this does not work try CNTL+ALT+DEL and select START
  2. Type POWERSHELL and press Enter
  3. Right click on the PowerShell icon on the taskbar and select RUN AS ADMINISTRATOR
  4. Copy / Paste the following command in the Administrator: Windows PowerShell window and press Enter key:
    Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”}
  5. Wait for PowerShell to execute and complete the command.
    • Ignore the errors in red color that may pop up.
  6. When it finishes (which will be a few minutes) try hitting START button and hopefully your Windows 10 START button will be working now

I certainly hope this fixes your problem like it has mine.  This is a giant pain in the butt that I have reported to Microsoft Partner Support and I hope the fix sooooooon!  Let me know how it works for you.

If you are still out of your mind trying to fix this, I think the only other solution I found that looked like it had promise (which I have NOT tested) is: http://webdevelopermeer.blogspot.de/2014/10/windows-81-apps-wont-open.html

I used several sources for this fix but the most notable is: http://forums.saliu.com/windows-10.htm THANKS Ion!

UPDATE Sept 25 2015:  I asked Microsoft Partner Support if they were aware of the issue and if there was an ETA for resolution.  They responded with:

…The solutions you have summarized are very useful. They will work for some machines. However, from my experience, the “start menu does not work” is a known issue, or may be a bug in Windows 10, which is actively under investigation. You can refer to the following post:

https://partnersupport.microsoft.com/en-us/mpnwinclient/forum/mpnwin-mpnwindows10pro/windows-10-update-not-working-cannot-get-to-update/dbc952d9-2748-4fc8-9e78-4f1a1e211f07

As I know, for now, there is no an exact solution for this issue…


80 Comments

Giorgos · November 16, 2015 at 7:49 am

YOU ARE MY GOD!!!

I am not a novice but this problem that happened a few days ago on my Windows 10 TH2 up to date updated PC was driving me nuts!!!

Thank you very much for your help and for your solution!

Kirsty Haining · November 16, 2015 at 1:12 am

Thank you! This is the second time Windows 10 has corrupted my user profile / start menu and I was not looking forward to the fix. In fact, I’m still running into minor problems from the first time I had to fix this issue (which I did by creating a new profile, copying over all data and documents and settings permission changes)….

Earlier today I tried all the other fixes you mentioned — trying scannow, DISM, reinstalling all apps, etc. — but this is the only one that has worked. Hooray! Saved my bacon (and at least a week’s worth of effort to fix things).

cheers!

Jon Moody · November 14, 2015 at 2:17 am

Brilliant solution. Worked for me after step 2.

May I suggest you include a step to either delete or disable the temporary accounts once they’re finished with?

net user tempadmin1 /delete
net user tempadmin2 /delete

BC · November 10, 2015 at 7:00 pm

Thank you so much! I installed Win 10 over 8.1 on a NEW Acer PC, ran fine for a couple weeks, then Start Button stopped working. Tried most of the fixes on the other thread, but no joy, could not create a new user and did not want to refresh the whole thing, so found this thread and followed it to the letter, easy peasy! worked the first time, will keep this fix handy if it happens again, hope Microsoft fixes this soon though. Really appreciate you putting this out there for us not so tech savvy persons.

Roz · November 9, 2015 at 9:39 pm

Thanks so much for this – can’t believe this is not the first answer on Google. It is the only one that seems to work – but I had to work my way through to Google page 4 to find it.

Ed. · November 6, 2015 at 1:02 pm

Hi Ian,

like all the others, thank you for the solution. It worked for me after many other possible solutions. However, I had to apply both your solutions, i.e. replacing the Database as well as registering the Apps. Only then the problem had been solved.

Aaron · October 30, 2015 at 3:24 pm

Yes! Thank you. I was hunting for some time to a solution to the start menu issue. Tried a bunch of things that didn’t work. The TileDataLayer folder copy did the trick.

JPG · October 28, 2015 at 5:07 am

This very day, I found the culprit that was causing the problem. I ran msconfig and then, after some trial and error, disabled “AMD External Events Service” found under the services tag. For some reason, this was causing the start button hang up. Now Windows 10 works properly.

    Sandra · December 4, 2015 at 8:35 pm

    I tried that but it didn’t work. I got the start button to work by doing a restore but then windows updated and stopped the start button from working again.

SteveK · October 27, 2015 at 2:43 pm

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! I am an IT professional, and have several workstations at the office on a windows domain that have this problem. I have tried every suggestion from Microsoft and public forums. None have work to fix the stat menu problem on our Windows 10 PCs. This worked perectly! Oh and did I say Thank you?

Cam · October 24, 2015 at 12:37 pm

Thanks so much!! This fixed everything!!! How does this happen anyway?

John Howarth · October 24, 2015 at 2:01 am

Hi Ian,
Many Thanks for your September 2015 post on the Windows 10 Start Menu issue.

I had tried everything posted in the internet but your Corrupt Tile Database fix pointed me in the right direction. I got the start menu back but there are a few differences with the task bar. The icons were all close together and the Start Menu now works but the icon was not there.

I re-registered of the apps as you suggested and rebooted.
Everything was as before.

I did have to remove the quotes from the ‘net user’ commands
(net user TempAdmin1 password1 /add)

Many Thanks again.

Kelsey · October 16, 2015 at 8:07 am

Keeps giving me advice on the proper syntax of the net user command, as if these copy-pasted lines aren’t formatted correctly.

    Ian Matthews · October 23, 2015 at 5:53 pm

    Sometimes copy/paste changes characters types (i.e. ASCI to ISO…). As a result you may have to look for extra spaces, odd characters, carriage returns, but I can assure you that the code functions as I use it and others report that it works. You might try pasting the text into a notepad first (to see if anything jumps out) and then from notepad into PowerShell.

      Joe · November 11, 2015 at 3:05 pm

      The TileDataLayer folder copy did the trick. Quotes had to be removed. Thanks a million spent way to many hours trying to resolve this issue. Without your help I would of had to spend many more hours.

    SteveK · October 27, 2015 at 2:39 pm

    I was getting the same error when pasting. Typing the commmands directly into the command prompt failed as well. To work around this issue right click on the start menu button and select Computer Management. From the computer management window go to Local User and Groups, where you can create the needed user accounts. I hope this helps

      AL · December 1, 2015 at 3:50 am

      This comedy of errors continues – in the Computer Management window, I do not have Local User and Groups options!

NZanatti · October 8, 2015 at 6:43 am

Hi, I had this same problem. Tried initiating services thru services.msc, powershell commands, etc. but the one that worked was Step 2 above: copy TileDataLayer database from a user where it was working to the user where it wasn’t.
Thx

Ian Matthews · September 30, 2015 at 5:59 pm

Hi Ron, you need to type each command one at a time and press the ENTER key after each one
You can ignore the . I had to add the periods to the top and the bottom of these THREE commands because it would not format the lines properly on this web page without it… so ignore the periods.

It is also critically important to ensure that CMD is being RUN AS ADMIN so make sure you choose CMD (ADMIN).

Let me know how it goes.

    AL · October 7, 2015 at 9:35 am

    Tried this a few times now, still the other logins wont appear.

    Can I just ask – there seems to be 2 different quote marks;

    “TempAdmin1″“password1″

    … between the “Admin1” and the “password1” – are we copying and pasting the exact text above, or typing the command in?

      ben · October 8, 2015 at 7:34 am

      try replacing the quotation marks with spaces instead. the guy who made this article didn’t make it clear that you’re not supposed to include the quotation marks

        Ed. · November 6, 2015 at 12:55 pm

        Hi Ben,

        I used the quotes also with the passwords and that worked fine sofar.

          AL · December 1, 2015 at 3:46 am

          Ok………. so I’ve been able to add the 2 Temp user accounts, still not sure if the net localgroup administrators “TempAdmin2” /add part has worked though, as
          when I log into the Temp accounts, the Start button still doesn’t work!
          Round and round in circles, I believe that if 100 “fixes” were discovered, none would work for me. What a failed, waste of time Windows 10 has been.

Ron M · September 25, 2015 at 7:59 am

Can you tell me how to enter this in command prompt admin? do I enter all this at once?
.
net user “TempAdmin1″“password1″ /add
net user “TempAdmin2″“password2″ /add
net localgroup administrators “TempAdmin2″ /add
.

Do I enter before signing out?
I have tried this but computer does not add any users.

    Shawn · October 1, 2015 at 9:55 am

    This worked for me, with some changes. I couldn’t get the new accounts added at first either. Leave off the quotations around the passwords. They should only be around the profile name. After I did that, everything worked fine and I didn’t have to move on to step three.

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