No menu start, no apps working

[mariaczi]

Hi,
I installed Windows 10.
I can't open menu start, I can't get Wi-Fi widget, i can't run edge... What should i do?? I'm lost...

 

[The_Prophecy]

Was this 10 install done as an upgrade? If so, there should be an option under Settings > Update & Security > Recovery > "Go back to Windows 8.1" (or Windows 7 as is the case). Use that option to revert back to 8.1, then try the upgrade again.

If this is a new install, and you don't have many (or any) apps installed, and no data to back up, under that same Recovery screen is another option to "Reset this PC". That will reset Windows 10 back to the way it would look on first boot of a clean install and should fix the problem.

 

[brokenupgrade]

You have company. My 64-bit 8.1 Pro was upgraded to 10 and is essentially useless at this time - no Start menu (click on left lower icon, nothing happens, right click and get old Windows 8.1 right-click menu). There is no "Settings" that would exist in a successful Windows 10 upgrade so it is not possible to Recover.

Invoking "SystemSettings.exe" from C:\Windows\ImmersiveControlPanel (which is what the Windows 10 Setting would do) does not produce any results whatsoever so cannot use that route to try to get Settings to appear.

One site suggests using an admin Powershell and pasting

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

into it but that stalls and does not finish - resulting in no Start menu still.

BTW, Edge loads and "runs" but is nonresponsive and cannot be killed by hitting the upper-right 'X' - had to kill it via a Sysutils Process Explorer.

And Control Panel's "Backup and Recovery" is also labeled "Backup and Recovery (Windows 7)" which seems really strange since this machine has never run Windows 7...

There is no "Go back to 8.1" anywhere at this time so it looks like I'll actually be replacing the C: drive with another C: drive I just image-copied before the upgrade attempt. That is not an ideal solution.

====

Another machine here running Windows 8.1 Home upgraded apparently successfully, though Widi projection is currently broken (probably Intel's fault).

 

[The_Prophecy]

You have company. My 64-bit 8.1 Pro was upgraded to 10 and is essentially useless at this time - no Start menu (click on left lower icon, nothing happens, right click and get old Windows 8.1 right-click menu). There is no "Settings" that would exist in a successful Windows 10 upgrade so it is not possible to Recover.

FYI - the Power Users menu accessed by right clicking the Start button from 8.1 was not changed in Windows 10. I know I'm arguing semantics here, but it's not really the "old Windows 8.1 right click menu".

And Control Panel's "Backup and Recovery" is also labeled "Backup and Recovery (Windows 7)" which seems really strange since this machine has never run Windows 7...

Backup and Recovery (Windows 7) refers to Windows 10's ability to read backups created within Windows 7, allowing you to import the data so you don't lose files. It does not in any way imply that the system was previously running Windows 7.

There is no "Go back to 8.1" anywhere at this time so it looks like I'll actually be replacing the C: drive with another C: drive I just image-copied before the upgrade attempt. That is not an ideal solution.

The option in Recovery to "Go Back to Windows 8.1" requires certain files and partitions to be present on the drive. If they are missing, you cannot use that method to downgrade back to 8.1, thus the OS does not present you with that option.

 

[brokenupgrade]

Knowing little about Windows 10 it's interesting, though irrelevant, where various nonworking features of an upgrade from 64-bit 8.1 Pro to 64-bit 10 Pro came. To the OP and myself (and apparently many many more - see this forum and forums around the 'Net) what REALLY matters is a relatively painless upgrade resulted in a useless, really broken OS.

I performed two upgrades today - the first, as noted, broke amazingly hard, the 2nd apparently is working fine (I don't personally know that however I sicced my daughter on the upgraded 64-bit 8.1. Home laptop, figuring she'd be using most features by the time she hits the sack sometime around 3AM...repeatedly asking her "How's it going?" with "No problems yet!" as the responses is reassuring).

Besides the "level" of the 8.1 to be upgraded (Pro/Home) there is one other, possibly critical, difference in the two upgrades - for the 8.1 Home laptop I simply waited until Microsoft said "Yeah, go ahead, you're cool".

But with the 8.1 Pro desktop I modified a registry key that says essentially the same thing - info from a weblog by Dave Gardiner weblog/ - that actually got around "The Wait" but, instead of using what was already downloaded onto my machine, downloaded a NEW copy that was used for the upgrade. Though I believe this paragraph's contents may not be relevant, either, there IS the possibility that something else with the upgrade procedure doesn't really like the customer getting around a locked door; for example, it is possible that uSoft is holding off enabling upgrades for certain machines/setups until 3rd party developers get their acts together and upgrade their drivers, etc - forcing the upgrade as Mr. Gardiner successfully did and I (and the OP?) unsuccessfully did might be a side-effect.

In any case, I'm sitting on my hands for now - my Clonezilla recovery of my recently backed up C drive got me back to July 30th's 8.1 where it'll stay until uSoft says "Yeah, go ahead, you're cool" to this machine.

EDIT - I just saw a post/article that mentioned that "Core 2 quad" CPUs may be problematic with Windows 10 - that is the CPU in the older desktop running Windows 8.1 Pro where the upgrade broke. Note that uSoft "precleared" our PCs prior to any attempts at upgrades.