Return of the Start Menu issue Windows 10 with Window Blinds running.
Friday, December 18, 2015 by gevansmd | Discussion: Personal Computing
I have no idea what's causing this. I uninstalled Start10 in case it was the culprit. If I boot with no SD programs running I get a clean start menu. I have not yet tried disabling one at a time and rebooting. Was hoping someone else had seen this and knows which program is causing it and a workaround. As you can see, when I display the default start menu, all applications, there are alphabet letters overlaid over the menu. Turning off all SD programs after a boot does not fix it. Only turning them off and rebooting.
I run WindowBlinds 10, WinFX 6, DeskScapes 8.5, CursorFX.
SOLVED: The problem is WB 10 beta. I contacted Stardock and they had me run the Purge WB tool and then rteinstall. The problem has gone away. I straigh uninstall/reinstall was not enough.
With WB 10.0.5, the large letters on the start menu program list is back, and the above solution no longer works. Uninstalling 10.0.5 and installing 10.0.4 fixes the problem.
Reply #2 Friday, December 18, 2015 7:03 PM
SFC found and repaired some corrupt files but after the reboot the issue persists. I guess I will have to bite the bullet and enable the SD programs one at a time until I find the one that causes the problem. The reboots take sooooooo long! [e digicons]:'([/e]
Reply #3 Friday, December 18, 2015 8:42 PM
The reboots take sooooooo long!
An SSD will fix that... 
Reply #4 Friday, December 18, 2015 9:59 PM
When I build my new PC the main drive will be an SSD. I read up on copying a hard drive to SSD and it doesn't sound pretty so I've held back on the new build partly for that reason.
Reply #5 Sunday, December 20, 2015 8:53 PM
I cannot find the program causing problem. I was sure it was Start10 since that's the one I have that modifies the Start menu but disabling it and rebooting doesn't fix. I disabled WB10. Not that one either. Ditto for DeskScapes and WinFX 6. Maybe it's a combination of more than one SD program but I don't have the patienece to try all of them. I guess I'll open a support ticket.
I called MS in case they had seen it. She told me to try an in place repair. A reasonable idea. Then she directed me to download an ISO file and double-click on it. ??? When I told her you can't run an ISO image she directed me to download a setup program. Unfortunately, once run, I cannot revert to W7, something I am seriously considering doing.
No one else has seen this?
Reply #6 Monday, December 21, 2015 6:54 AM
Did you reboot after disabling WB?
I have seen that once before with a prototype WB but there was a specific reason for it and WB was modified to resolve it.
I assume you do not have ModernMix installed?
Reply #7 Monday, December 21, 2015 9:24 AM
When I build my new PC the main drive will be an SSD. I read up on copying a hard drive to SSD and it doesn't sound pretty so I've held back on the new build partly for that reason.
I just duplicated 6 different hard drives to new SSD's. I used a duplicator from StarTech.com, works great! Although if you copy, lets say a 500GB HDD to a 1TB SSD, you will have to go in any merge the other 500GB to get full drive capacity. I use EaseUS Partition Master fot that, it's free and works great also.
Reply #8 Monday, December 21, 2015 1:08 PM
Did you reboot after disabling WB?
I have seen that once before with a prototype WB but there was a specific reason for it and WB was modified to resolve it.
I assume you do not have ModernMix installed?
I uninstalled WB10 again and this time after the reboot, the Start Menu problem went away. Reinstalled and it's back. I will open a ticket. Since this is a beta WB it may be a problem already on its way to being solved.
Reply #9 Monday, December 21, 2015 1:13 PM
When I build my new PC the main drive
will be an SSD. I read up on copying a hard drive to SSD and it doesn't sound pretty so I've held back on the new build partly for that reason.
I just duplicated 6 different hard drives to new SSD's. I used a duplicator from StarTech.com, works great! Although if you copy, lets say a 500GB HDD to a 1TB SSD, you will have to go in any merge the other 500GB to get full drive capacity. I use EaseUS Partition Master fot that, it's free and works great also.
What if I'm going from a 2 TB drive to 1 TB SSD? Can I copy directly or do I have to shrink the HD partition first?
Reply #10 Monday, December 21, 2015 1:18 PM
Did you reboot after disabling WB?
I have seen that once before with a prototype WB but there was a specific reason for it and WB was modified to resolve it.
I assume you do not have ModernMix installed?
I uninstalled WB10 again and this time after the reboot, the Start Menu problem went away. Reinstalled and it's back. I will open a ticket. Since this is a beta WB it may be a problem already on its way to being solved.
Which build of Windows 10 are you using?
Reply #11 Monday, December 21, 2015 4:25 PM
When I build my new PC the main drive
will be an SSD. I read up on copying a hard drive to SSD and it doesn't sound pretty so I've held back on the new build partly for that reason.I just duplicated 6 different hard drives
to new SSD's. I used a duplicator from StarTech.com, works great! Although if you copy, lets say a 500GB HDD to a 1TB SSD, you will have to go in any merge the other 500GB to get full drive capacity. I use EaseUS Partition Master fot that, it's free and works great also.
What if I'm going from a 2 TB drive to 1 TB SSD? Can I copy directly or do I have to shrink the HD partition first?
I tried duplicating a 320GB HDD to a 256GB SSB, but larger to smaller did not seem to work here with the StarTerch hardware way. You should be able to use EaseUS Partition Master for that though, if has drive duplication features, but you would need to buy the Professional version.
Reply #12 Monday, December 21, 2015 5:03 PM
going from a larger hdd to a smaller ssd IF there is less data/files on the hdd than the size of the ssd should work without issues (btw I usually use hdclone booting from a cd to do the copy so that all files are NOT open or in use)
going from a similar size hdd to ssd does work, and going from a smaller hdd to a larger ssd also does work
again I usually boot from a cd of the cloning software to do the copy, then after the copy completes, I switch off and swap the data connectors between the drives then remove the hdd (and keep it as a complete system backup as at the time of copy)
harpo, the ghost NON-subscribing tech
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Reply #1 Friday, December 18, 2015 4:22 PM
Run an Administrative Mode Command Prompt and type in sfc /scannow and press enter. Wait until it finishes and reboot. Just might fix your issue.