Windows 10 - Start Button Stops Working
So I've been running Windows 10 for some time now. Yesterday everything was fine. I got in to work and turned my PC on...and now the start button doesn't work. After hours of Google searches and trying different things, here is what worked for me. You will be working with the registry. Don't screw it up! You will also be deleting your profile so make sure you have copies of whatever you need in it.
1. Log in as another user with admin permissions.
2. Back up your user profile. I just renamed mine. c:\users\johmar to c:\users\oldjohmar. You want to rename so you can get your desktop shortcuts and whatever other files you may need out of your old profile.
3. Open regedit and go to HKEY_Users. Under there will be some big long SIDs. Anyway, you need to look at the long ones that DON'T say "_Classes" at the end. Expand it and go to Volatile Environment. Find the one that is for the logon where the start button isn't working. Delete that key - not just the Volatile Environment key, the whole thing (highlighted in yellow below.
4. Now go to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList. There will be several long SIDs again. Look for an entry with ".bak" on the end. Click on it on the left side and look at the ProfileImagePath. You are looking for the one pointing to the user profile you deleted (or renamed). If you find one with a .bak extension on it that points to the profile you deleted, delete it. If there is a matching SID without the .bak, delete it too. Watch the numbers carefully and make sure you delete the right thing!! When I fixed mine, I had a .bak file but NOT a matching SID without the .bak extension. I don't have a .bak entry in my registry anymore so I can't show a screen capture.
5. Close the registry editor.
6. Reboot and if you did everything right, you should not get a temp profile again.
7. Delete the renamed profile once you are sure you no longer need any files in it. Or don't. It's not hurting anything sitting there.
