The Windows 10 Fall Creators Update aka V1709 or Build 16299.19 has changed the nature of the Windows 10 bug seen with extended JRiver Media Center playback.
Any suspended (minimized) Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps, Edge browser and SystemSettings no longer hang and return successfully from suspended to running state.
In some cases the bug appears to have disappeared completely and no longer affects the Start Menu or Search/Cortana (as reported by amsco15 and others).
This is of course a very welcome development and a big improvement on previous Windows 10 releases.
I would urge anyone having Windows 10 Start Menu problems to update to Windows 10 V1709 as soon as possible.
You never know, you may get a winning ticket in the Windows update lottery!
However in some cases the bug is still there, albeit with a much longer period between failure of either the Start Menu or Search/Cortana (approx 5 hours).
On systems that are still having Start Menu failures, disabling the Visual Effect 'Animations in the taskbar' and restarting the system can be effective in curing the bug.
It may be necessary to disable more Visual Effects other than 'Animations in the taskbar' to cure the bug on a particular system, experimentation is recommended!
On some systems the Start Menu responds OK but Cortana fails to respond, disabling Cortana and just using Search appears to be effective in curing this (if you don't need Cortana of course).
EDIT: 21-Nov-2017 - I have found after further experience with V1709 that not using Mozilla Firefox also seems to prevent the 'bug' occurring (I have only verified this on two systems..as ever YMMV).
END EDITThere are some systems that still fail after about 2 hours (bad luck Awesome Donkey), despite all the above 'fixes' having been tried.
In such cases running the attached V2 w10spk.vbs script on a scheduled basis does fix the bug.
Please see the attached Script Guide pdf for details of how to install and use the V2 version of w10spk, the Script Guide also contains information on how to disable Visual Effects in Windows 10.
This Windows 10 bug is ‘weird and wonderful’ and can still appear at any time on any system (even just after a restart), sometimes the Start Menu is OK but Search/Cortana will not open.
Other applications besides JRiver Media Center can also cause the bug to appear, most notably the Steam gaming platform.
Given the above it may be worthwhile installing the script and just using it when required from a desktop shortcut to restart or recover the Start Menu/Search without the need to sign out or restart the system.
For more information about the history of the 'bug' and the development of the w10spk script, see this post here:
https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=106925.0The V2 w10spk script is backwards compatible with earlier Windows 10 builds and will work with any 32 or 64 bit release of Media Center, if you are using an earlier version I would recommend updating to this version.
The V1 versions of the w10spk script should NOT be used with Windows 10 V1709 (Fall Creators Update).
I would like to offer my profound thanks to forum members Awesome Donkey and chris635 for their great work in beta testing the V2 w10spk script and also the various 'fixes'.
As ever the code and ideas are shared freely on this forum. If you do wish to use them, feel free but if you publish your own solution, please keep it open-source.
If you need any help with the script or you find a problem, please send me a Personal Message.
Terry