#Start menu not working how to

If you have no way of running your backup program, you can use the technique outlined in How to Back Up a Machine that Won’t Boot. If you don’t have a Start menu from which to run programs, you can use the Task Manager’s File, New Task (Run…) to run the programs we need.Īs always, I strongly recommend you back up before attempting any of these approaches. If it does not, we need to explore other approaches to fixing it.

That should restart Explorer and re-display your taskbar. Then, on the File menu, select Run New Task. (Screenshot: )Ĭlick on Task Manager. In Task Manager, if the File menu is not shown, click on “More details” near the bottom. The workaround: press CTRL+ALT+DEL, which brings up a menu of options. If it’s not running then it’s not around to do either of those things. That program is often called the “Windows Shell,” but it’s really “explorer.exe.” It displays the taskbar but also responds to the CTRL+ESC sequence. If CTRL+ESC didn’t bring it back, then the program that displays the taskbar probably isn’t running. The article “ How to Manage Taskbar Space” includes a short video showing the settings you can change to make it behave the way you want, and/or the approach to making it “big enough” once again. The workaround? Press CTRL+ESC to access the taskbar. If your taskbar magically reappears, then it’s probably simply been resized too small, repositioned somewhere you didn’t expect, or perhaps beneath another application that is running full-screen on your computer. If none of this resolves the issue, you may need to refresh or reset Windows. If that doesn’t work, check for malware and possibly corrupted system files. If that doesn’t work, use Task Manager to run “explorer.exe”. If that works, use Taskbar settings to reconfigure the taskbar so you can see it. Press CTRL+ESC to bring up the taskbar if it’s hiding or in an unexpected location.

#Start menu not working how to