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[terrym@tassie]

EDIT: This version of the script has been superseded by w10spk.vbs see this post in the MC22 forum:
Windows 10 Start Menu and Modern Apps 'problem', a vbscript work-around


If you are unlucky enough to have the disappearing or unresponsive Windows 10 Start Menu problem you will know what a nuisance it is.
See this topic http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=100712.0 for details.
I have two Windows 10 systems and they are both affected, if I use JRiver MC for playback of audio or video (mainly video) for longer than approx 40 minutes the Start Menu becomes unresponsive.
 
EDIT: Other users have reported the same problem using other software on Windows 10 and this work around is for a WINDOWS 10 PROBLEM not a JRiver Media Center problem.
(it is just that I only use Media Center....why would anyone possibly want to run anything else?)

The attached text file w10smk.txt contains a vbscript I have written that fixes the problem for me and I thought I would share it.

The purpose of the script is to terminate the Windows 10 processes SearchUI.exe and ShellHostExperience.exe on a regular interval (Windows 10 immediately recreates them).
I have found that by doing this I never lose the Windows 10 Start Menu.


EDIT 2nd May 2016:
Attached V1.1 of w10smk script and removed redundant w10smr script (the same outcomes can now be achieved using w10smk).

Please read the attached script header carefully for supported command line arguments and examples of usage before running the script. (they have changed if you have previously used the V1.0 script)

The script can run in two modes:
 'loop mode' (the default) where it sits in the background and terminates the above mentioned Windows 10 processes every 20 minutes or 'once mode' where it terminates the Windows 10 processes and then exits.
It can also be set to only terminate the Windows 10 processes if JRiver Media Center is running.
EDIT May 09 2016
See reply #32 on this thread for a new version of the script that allows for termination of the Windows 10 processes only if JRiver Media Center is actually PLAYING.

You can achieve the same effect as loop mode by running the script from Task Scheduler every 20 minutes in 'once mode' if preferred.
If you need help setting up Task Scheduler jobs please post reply.

To use the script download or copy the attached text file and save with a .vbs extension instead of .txt in the folder of your choice.
Please read the script header before using.
To launch in default mode just double click the script in Explorer.
To launch the script every time you log on, create a shortcut to the script in folder C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup

In summary this has worked for me but your mileage may vary, it doesn't appear to have any ill effects and is very lightweight (1.8 mb memory, negligible CPU) when run in 'loop mode'.

Most importantly I now never have an unresponsive Start Menu in Windows 10!

[glynor]

If you're seeing this very regularly, you may also want to try the Registry edit described here:
http://superuser.com/questions/980281/how-to-fix-windows-10-explorer-exe-not-responding

I actually got it on my HTPC tonight and had it a few days ago on the same system. These were the first times I'd seen the issue in months, though, so just restarting explorer.exe isn't too much trouble.

[terrym@tassie]

@glynor - Yes I've tried very other fix imaginable during the last six months (the one with virgin's tears and a full moon was a bit of challenge though...) and nothing has worked as well or reliably as this does.
 
BUT you will only want to run this script if you are seeing the problem as severely and reproducibly as I am- e.g. Every time I playback video through MC for longer than 40 minutes.
Otherwise it will be a bit like using kangaroo repellent dust in Arizona...no kangaroos seen but is it the repellent keeping them away?

If you see the problem intermittently (say once every 6 weeks) then just stick with restarting Explorer or logging off.

[gappie]

thank you very much for sharing this...i will play with it..

 
gab

[MusicBringer]

"thank you very much for sharing this...i will play with it."
Me too.

[Late Edit] it works, so far.

Thank you very much.
 

[gappie]

works great. i use it in the "once" mode. that is good enough for me, and im also not sure if it only happens when using mc. i have the feeling that reaper and maybe totalmix could be a problem as well.. the only thing i want to change is the nice message telling me it worked.. i could do without any notification.. i will try to look into the code to change that  

so thanks again.

 
gab

[blgentry]

the only thing i want to change is the nice message telling me it worked.. i could do without any notification.. i will try to look into the code to change that  

Looks like if you comment out line #135, it won't give you the message any more:
   Wscript.Echo "Terminated SearchUI.exe and ShellExperienceHost.exe processes"

Just add a single quote (') to the beginning of the line to comment it out.

Note:  I have not tested this.

Brian.

[terrym@tassie]

@gappie  Gab, glad it is working for you, as Brian says just comment out line 135 using a ' to suppress the message. Perhaps I need to add a /silent command line argument to suppress messages.
I could also add a modifier for loop mode if people want it to run even if JRiver MC was not present.
I only see the problem with MC so I created the script with that in mind.
Let me know if you would like it changed.
@MusicBringer- good to get the feedback that it works for you as well- testing so far has been limited to my two systems, never know how things are going to go "in the wild".
Terry

[glynor]

Just because I'm curious, why did you implement it with a loop in the script, rather than just using the Windows Task Scheduler to run it as frequently as desired?

I'd be loathe to let any script run in the Windows Script engine forever. The garbage collection just isn't that good, so it'll eventually eat up RAM if you're not very careful in writing the script...

[terrym@tassie]

@glynor There are many ways to skin a cat and certainly using Task Scheduler would be one way to do it.
I have been writing vbscript "background" scripts that do other things on my systems for some time and yes you need to be very careful about nulling created objects etc.
I find with this script the Working Sets diminish quite nicely as it runs (spends most of it time asleep).
As I said I have been running similar scripts for over 3 years on Windows 7 and Windows 10 without hitting memory issues so this one should be OK. I will probably implement a /silent switch for the /once option so it can be run as a "single shot" Task Scheduler job for people who prefer to run it that way.
Thanks for the interest and curiosity!

Terry

[stewart_pk]

I created a batch script with the below commands that gets run every time I close JRiver MC with my IR remote control.

TASKKILL /F /IM explorer.exe
start explorer.exe

[MusicBringer]

@MusicBringer- good to get the feedback that it works for you as well- testing so far has been limited to my two systems, never know how things are going to go "in the wild".
Terry

Terry, I am so grateful that you offered this fix to the horrid No Start Menu /No Search window problem.
I have suffered with (out) Start Menu since the middle of last year.
Your marvel is still working nicely for me, although I have not rebooted yet.
I am not understanding the conversations above about loops and hoops.
I made a simple shortcut on my desktop for your w10smk.vbs and shall run it when needed.
Unless you suggest any other simple refinement.
thanks again,
 

[terrym@tassie]

I created a batch script with the below commands that gets run every time I close JRiver MC with my IR remote control.

TASKKILL /F /IM explorer.exe
start explorer.exe

I did experiment with restarting Explorer but unfortunately it also wipes out some of the icons from the System Tray (Nvidia Geforce Experience, ASUS GPU Tweak) which requires logging on and off to restore.
I also don't have a remote control.

Terry, I am so grateful that you offered this fix to the horrid No Start Menu /No Search window problem.
I have suffered with (out) Start Menu since the middle of last year.
Your marvel is still working nicely for me, although I have not rebooted yet.
I am not understanding the conversations above about loops and hoops.
I made a simple shortcut on my desktop for your w10smk.vbs and shall run it when needed.
Unless you suggest any other simple refinement.
thanks again,
 

You will have to click on your desktop shortcut every time you reboot or logon to keep the script running unless you copy the shortcut to the folder
C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
Glad to hear it's still doing the job for you!

[chris635]

I was using process lasso to do this, but I like your method here Terry, good job. I ran jriver for 9 hrs playing music and no problems. I do still have to use process lasso for other apps (windows store, weather ...etc)in the app container because the problem does affect any app suspended in the app container. Works perfect for searchui and shellexperience host. Also I have foobar installed on my laptop for testing, and the problem reared its ugly head on there two with foobar.

[terrym@tassie]

I was using process lasso to do this, but I like your method here Terry, good job. I ran jriver for 9 hrs playing music and no problems. I do still have to use process lasso for other apps (windows store, weather ...etc)in the app container because the problem does affect any app suspended in the app container. Works perfect for searchui and shellexperience host. Also I have foobar installed on my laptop for testing, and the problem reared its ugly head on there two with foobar.

I hadn't realized this affects other apps in the container as well, (I don't use any),however it would not be difficult to modify the script to terminate any number of exe processes if required.
I could also add a /nomcheck switch to the w10smk script to disable checking for JRiver MC (if Foobar is a problem as well) or you could use the new w10smr script via the task scheduler to deal with the Foobar issue.
Please let me know if you would like any changes.

[chris635]

I hadn't realized this affects other apps in the container as well, (I don't use any),however it would not be difficult to modify the script to terminate any number of exe processes if required.
I could also add a /nomcheck switch to the w10smk script to disable checking for JRiver MC (if Foobar is a problem as well) or you could use the new w10smr script via the task scheduler to deal with the Foobar issue.
Please let me know if you would like any changes.

I was using foobar as a test to see if win10 would problem would show there as well. Hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of modifying this to work with foobar for testing. Certainly all the credit is given to you for your work on creating this. I am not planning on keeping it this way. It's just for testing purposes. So far it's working with foobar running. I want to let it run a little longer though to be sure. And yes the problem with win 10 affects anything running inside the app container. These process's get suspended after idle time with no use. I suspect this is part of the problem. You can see what I'm talking about using process explorer.

[chris635]

I don't have time tonight, but I will test your new script tomorrow...

[terrym@tassie]

Hope you don't mind, but I took the liberty of modifying this to work with foobar for testing.

No problem, there is no copyright on these scripts they are shared for people to use or modify as they see fit. Look forward to hearing the results of your testing.
I assume if the script was extended to the other apps such as Weather then it would be a requirement not to just terminate the process but to restart it as well.
I'll have a look at that next week.

[chris635]

No problem, there is no copyright on these scripts they are shared for people to use or modify as they see fit. Look forward to hearing the results of your testing.
I assume if the script was extended to the other apps such as Weather then it would be a requirement not to just terminate the process but to restart it as well.
I'll have a look at that next week.

@terrym@nz
 Okay, I tested about 10 hours today. I modified your original script to include the extra apps I use (Weather,Calculator,Systemsettings and Windows Store). It shuts them down just like it should. As expected the searchui and shellexperience host start back on there own. The others do not, but thats okay, no errors in the event viewer or system hangs, windows is perfectly fine with this. You can start them up again by clicking on them to use them If you need to with no problems, however if you leave them up and running, they will get shut down on the next 20 min schedule. Once you shut down MC all is well still..PERFECT! I set the script to run on system startup. Two draw backs though. 1. Whoever uses this will need to add the apps they use manually to the script (not hard just a little time). 2. terrym@nz if you wanted to have a "one size fits all" solution, you would need to add every app installed with windows, the problem here is, you don't know who would install a new app from the windows store, then that would have to be added as well. So in short I think this works great, and may require a little effort for the end user.

  My laptop has been running foobar with the script running...everything works!!! The app container for win10 seems to have issues with any robust media solution.

I will continue to run my main rig for the next week with out shutdowns to be sure.

[terrym@tassie]

@chris365
Having looked at the apps issue I don't think it would be sensible to have the apps shutdown and restarted every 20 minutes.
However it would be possible to have a script that runs from a shortcut that a user can trigger when they want to restore their apps.
 
It is quite possible to derive which apps are running on a system at any given time they don't need to be "hard-coded" as a list as you suggest.
The mechanism is to search for running processes with a command line that includes 'C:\program files\windowsapps\blablah' and then save the command line, terminate the process and then restart the app using the saved command line value.

I'll have a look at doing this during the week when I have time.

Terry

[chris635]

@terrym@nz

    Edit to my last post. The other apps will restart on their own once the system is idle for a period of time. No need for a restart on them. Sorry about that, wasn't paying close enough attention.

[terrym@tassie]

@chris365
OK I've looked at this and
a) I can't reproduce your problems with the apps, even if my Start Menu is unresponsive then apps like Weather still respond fine.
b) It seems difficult (if not impossible) to restart an app from within a script (either Powershell or vbscript).

So I am going to pass on this one- however here is a Powershell 2 line script that will terminate any apps that have been started from the 'windowsapps' folder you might like to play with:

Code: [Select]

$apps=get-wmiobject -Class win32_process -Filter "CommandLine like '%windowsapps%'"
$apps | % { ([wmi]$_.__RELPATH).terminate() | out-null }
Have fun!

[MusicBringer]

Terry, when playing albums I love to get hold of the original version.
I've got your original version of this script and I luv it.
Works nicely when clicked, although I might pop it in Startup now.
thanks again from a very happy bunny.
 

[terrym@tassie]

Terry, when playing albums I love to get hold of the original version.

I'm not sure this policy necessarily hold good for software- Windows 1.0 anyone? (In case you didn't have the pleasure?? of using the original Windows it allowed you to display a split screen with two (yes two) dos windows open AT THE SAME TIME circa 1989).

The revised script is a little more efficient (removed redundant subroutine calls), more flexible and is hopefully a little clearer to read, but the original will still do the job for you until Microsoft get around to fixing it.

Terry

PS If you do use the revised version don't forget to add /mcheck to the target in the shortcut as the default is now NOT to check for a running instance of Media Center.

[michael123]

Hello,

thanks for the script. I have Windows 10 and I say that the start button for me works very rarely, usually it does not. If I reboot the machine, immediately after it works again, but soon clicking on it does nothing.
Hopefully the script will resolve it (as I tried various things on Microsoft site and blogs and that did not help)

But why do you think it is a Microsoft bug?

My PC is running MC21 and related audio drivers and filters, nothing else.

[MusicBringer]

I'm not sure this policy necessarily hold good for software- Windows 1.0 anyone? (In case you didn't have the pleasure?? of using the original Windows it allowed you to display a split screen with two (yes two) dos windows open AT THE SAME TIME circa 1989).

The revised script is a little more efficient (removed redundant subroutine calls), more flexible and is hopefully a little clearer to read, but the original will still do the job for you until Microsoft get around to fixing it.

Terry

PS If you do use the revised version don't forget to add /mcheck to the target in the shortcut as the default is now NOT to check for a running instance of Media Center.

Terry, sorry, I am not a coder. Is the revised script in post number one? I know where Target is, but how do I specify the /mcheck. Give me an example perhaps.

And yes I do remember working with dos, dr dos, and windows 1.0 esp WfWG 3.1.1.
File Manager on split screens wonderful stuff.

[terrym@tassie]

Terry, sorry, I am not a coder. Is the revised script in post number one? I know where Target is, but how do I specify the /mcheck. Give me an example perhaps.

Yes, the revised script is in post number 1, I decided not to litter the thread with multiple versions.
Please see attached jpg for an example of a shortcut to the script.
In a Windows shortcut properties 'target' is the 'command line', '/mcheck' is a 'command line argument' see the script header for more examples of using command line arguments (or args) to modify the script's behavior.

But why do you think it is a Microsoft bug?

My PC is running MC21 and related audio drivers and filters, nothing else.

The unresponsive Start Menu problem has been reported by folks running Foobar, Adobe Suite and other software, the only commonality being Windows 10, so I believe that it is a Microsoft issue.

[glynor]

But why do you think it is a Microsoft bug?

My PC is running MC21 and related audio drivers and filters, nothing else.

The unresponsive Start Menu problem has been reported by folks running Foobar, Adobe Suite and other software, the only commonality being Windows 10, so I believe that it is a Microsoft issue.

Yes. Absolutely true. That and because MC cannot "cause" the Windows shell to crash (other separate applications into which it is not injecting code). It is, by definition, Microsoft's problem.

Just like you cannot "cause" your car's engine to break by turning on the interior dome light. Yes, perhaps your car is broken in some crazy fashion and when you turn on the dome light, there is an unfortunate series of electrical events that causes the timing to go out and the pistons to crash out of sync. But that is also, by definition, because your car is broken and not "your" fault. It can't even be the maker of the dome light's fault, because the car shouldn't let the dome light (no matter how flaky or broken) have any bearing on how the pistons fire.

This is the same. Especially if you have shell extensions and WDM drivers disabled*, MC is not touching explorer.exe code in any conceivable way. It isn't plugging into it. It isn't intercepting any of its API calls. It isn't running any kernel extensions, or doing any tricky stuff like an OS "skinning" application or anti-virus applications do. It is just a Win32 executable doing its own C++ things and using its own graphics and windowing framework (like Chrome, and Adobe applications, and tons of other programs do). The whole idea of modern Operating System's memory protection we've had in Windows since NT is that the code in application A can't scribble on the memory space of code from application B. They're not allowed to touch each other. Non-privileged code (anything that is not a driver or kernel extension) is not allowed to mess with or crash the OS itself or any other application on the computer. If you try, then the OS crashes you, not the other program. That's what made Windows NT better than Windows 95/98/ME and what makes OSX better than OS9.

If you are a programmer and you want to "touch" another application, you have to "hook into" them with official or unofficial APIs, or you have to be running with kernel privledges. MC isn't doing any of that, and MC isn't crashing. So, therefore, explorer.exe and the other related processes aren't running JRiver code. They're running Microsoft code. If Microsoft's shell gets all pissy and hangs randomly, JRiver can't find and fix the bugs in the code. It isn't their code.

I'd also note that if you have updated your OS (earlier builds of Windows 10 were terrible in this regard) and are still seeing these kinds of hangs in the Start Menu very frequently (more than once a week, certainly), then almost certainly one of these is true:

• Something wrong with your OS installation and you might want to consider wiping it and starting over (particularly if you also generally have problems with other "Windows Store" applications).
• Something is weird about your computer that isn't in Microsoft's direct control that is interacting with the shell (a GPU driver probably, but maybe AV, or GPU+AV combined, or storage driver, or who knows what magic combination).
  
• Microsoft's bug is very peculiar and specific to circumstances (regionalized, specific CPU generations or models, time zone, network configuration, DRAM type, storage configuration, or something).

* And, for the record, whether you have shell extensions and/or the WDM Driver enabled or disabled has no bearing on the Windows Start Menu issues on any system where I've ever seen the problem in the past or heard about.

[terrym@tassie]

• Microsoft's bug is very peculiar and specific to circumstances (regionalized, specific CPU generations or models, time zone, network configuration, DRAM type, storage configuration, or something).

I think this may be true of affected systems, and fwiw my money is on the  'or something' and Microsoft need to sort their peculiar bug out.
Fwiw I'm outside the US, so I do wonder about the regional issue.

Also fwiw I have already done full clean installs on  2 systems and the bug remains, so I am not sure recommending stripping the OS back to 'bare metal' is particularly helpful.
Also as far as I am aware it is pretty difficult to AVOID having all the Windows 10 updates installed on non-corporate licensed versions.
My 2 systems that are affected have different CPUs, GPUs, Audio cards/drivers and memory and storage types.

[glynor]

It seems to be related to drawing to the screen. Applications that can trigger it seem to all have in common that they don't draw their UI using the built-in Windows Forms or other similar APIs (lots of cross-platform application with their own skinning and UI engines).

And it didn't happen in Windows 8 with that whole new Start Screen and WinRT Metro application API switchover. It is specific to new bits in Windows 10.

My bet is that there be dragons in 10's new stuff that lets them run WinRT applications "within" the desktop (instead of the full-screen shell overtop like in Windows 8 did). The Start Menu is, essentially a "metro" RT application, and all of this was very rough throughout many pre-release builds of Windows 10. That, possibly combined with UI scaling stuff (which was also flaky throughout the OSes betas and is still wonky sometimes) and/or the changes to Snapping.

It would be cool if you could figure out some commonality that causes some machines to be impacted more than others. But in the end, we just have to hope they figure it out.

[terrym@tassie]

It seems to be related to drawing to the screen. Applications that can trigger it seem to all have in common that they don't draw their UI using the built-in Windows Forms or other similar APIs (lots of cross-platform application with their own skinning and UI engines).

And it didn't happen in Windows 8 with that whole new Start Screen and WinRT Metro application API switchover. It is specific to new bits in Windows 10.

My bet is that there be dragons in 10's new stuff that lets them run WinRT applications "within" the desktop (instead of the full-screen shell overtop like in Windows 8 did). The Start Menu is, essentially a "metro" RT application, and all of this was very rough throughout many pre-release builds of Windows 10. That, possibly combined with UI scaling stuff (which was also flaky throughout the OSes betas and is still wonky sometimes) and/or the changes to Snapping.

It would be cool if you could figure out some commonality that causes some machines to be impacted more than others. But in the end, we just have to hope they figure it out.

Couldn't agree more with the above, but at the end of the day Microsoft are the ones who have all the data from all these searchui.exe etc crashes from all over the world so it is up to them to work out the commonality. (My Windows 10 systems love sending stuff to Microsoft)

Then they either need to fix their code or make recommendations to other software vendors/gpu manufacturers etc so they can mitigate the problem.

But TBH I've stopped holding my breath on this, hence the (rather crude but effective) method I have shared in this thread

[MusicBringer]

I've stopped holding my breath on this, hence the (rather crude but effective) method I have shared in this thread

...but effective
And what a effective enhancement it is!
Revised thingy now in Start up folder, complete with '/mcheck' as a target suffix.
 

[terrym@tassie]

Edit superseded by w10spk.vbs see:
Windows 10 Start Menu and Modern Apps 'problem', a vbscript work-around

In my original post I stated the problem with the unresponsive Windows 10 Start Menu only occurred if I was playing something in Media Center for more than about 40 minutes.
The original versions (1.0 & 1.1) of w10smk.vbs only check (if /mcheck specified) that Media Center is PRESENT on the system- not whether it is PLAYING.
In this post I am offering an enhanced version (1.2) which checks if Media Center is actually PLAYING before terminating the Windows 10 processes.

The new option is enabled by specifying /mplay rather than /mcheck on the command line.
BUT
to enable this functionality you also need to install an additional Powershell script (mc_mcws.ps1) in the same folder as w10smk.vbs
AND
enable the Media Network in JRiver Media Center
AND
setup the Powershell script mc_mcws.ps1 as described in the attached mc_mcws_readme.txt

So to use the new option save w10smk.txt as w10smk.vbs in the folder of your choice, save mc_mcws.txt as mc_mcws.ps1 IN THE SAME FOLDER
then read carefully mc_mcws_readme.txt for how to set up Media Center Media Network and get the powershell script ready for use.

The attachment w10smk_vbs_changelog.txt shows the changes to applied to the w10smk.vbs script.

Why a Powershell script as well?
In a word laziness, it is much easier to write a Powershell script to use the MCWS web service which is what is used to determine whether Media Center is playing or not.
So why not write the whole thing in Powershell?
It is impossible to get Powershell scripts to run completely invisibly unless they are launched from vbscript, Powershell scripts use much more memory than vbscript and so
are not suitable for the 'loop mode' which is one of the features of w10smk.vbs.

Is it worth all the extra complexity?
Well I think so because to use the example of my HTPC, Media Center runs all the time on this system and so if I use the w10smk /mcheck the Windows 10 processes are terminated and restarted  3 times an hour, 24 hours a day, that is 72 termination/restarts a day.
If however I use w10smk /mplay and say watch 4 hours of video a day (I wish) that is only 12 termination/restarts per day.

I do hope Microsoft fix this soon!

Any questions, post a reply.

[seanmcdougall]

Just wanted to add my thanks to others for pinpointing explorer.exe in the batch file above. It's fixed a problem I have been living with for months.

[chris635]

In my original post I stated the problem with the unresponsive Windows 10 Start Menu only occurred if I was playing something in Media Center for more than about 40 minutes.
The original versions (1.0 & 1.1) of w10smk.vbs only check (if /mcheck specified) that Media Center is PRESENT on the system- not whether it is PLAYING.
In this post I am offering an enhanced version (1.2) which checks if Media Center is actually PLAYING before terminating the Windows 10 processes.

The new option is enabled by specifying /mplay rather than /mcheck on the command line.
BUT
to enable this functionality you also need to install an additional Powershell script (mc_mcws.ps1) in the same folder as w10smk.vbs
AND
enable the Media Network in JRiver Media Center
AND
setup the Powershell script mc_mcws.ps1 as described in the attached mc_mcws_readme.txt

So to use the new option save w10smk.txt as w10smk.vbs in the folder of your choice, save mc_mcws.txt as mc_mcws.ps1 IN THE SAME FOLDER
then read carefully mc_mcws_readme.txt for how to set up Media Center Media Network and get the powershell script ready for use.

The attachment w10smk_vbs_changelog.txt shows the changes to applied to the w10smk.vbs script.

Why a Powershell script as well?
In a word laziness, it is much easier to write a Powershell script to use the MCWS web service which is what is used to determine whether Media Center is playing or not.
So why not write the whole thing in Powershell?
It is impossible to get Powershell scripts to run completely invisibly unless they are launched from vbscript, Powershell scripts use much more memory than vbscript and so
are not suitable for the 'loop mode' which is one of the features of w10smk.vbs.

Is it worth all the extra complexity?
Well I think so because to use the example of my HTPC, Media Center runs all the time on this system and so if I use the w10smk /mcheck the Windows 10 processes are terminated and restarted  3 times an hour, 24 hours a day, that is 72 termination/restarts a day.
If however I use w10smk /mplay and say watch 4 hours of video a day (I wish) that is only 12 termination/restarts per day.

I do hope Microsoft fix this soon!

Any questions, post a reply.

Thanks terrym@nz. This works great with the /mplay switch! Good job...as you know, I have added other apps to it as well.

[terrym@tassie]

@chris635  Glad you find it useful, I've also been using longer time periods between process terminations, I have now settled on a 40 minute interval.
Using the 40 minute interval and the /mplay option I am on average only doing process termination 3 times a day and still have no issue with the Start Menu becoming unresponsive.

It is actually quite strange to find the Start Menu responding every time, I'd got so used to it failing all the time!

[JimCo06]

First a huge Thank You to terrym@nz for figuring this out and posting a solution.  I strongly urge the powers that be to sticky this thread to the top of the page so others with the problem can find it more easily.  I was actually giving up on MC and in the process of switching over to Foobar2000 when I found this solution.  I simply couldn’t use MC without freezing my start button (and trust me that hurts  ).

Just yesterday I discovered that Microsoft has developed a tool to help identify the cause of this problem.  You can find it here.  I tried running it but it didn’t find any problems.  After thinking about it for a while, I wondered if the reason it didn’t find anything was because the script was running.  When I have more time (this weekend) I plan on stopping the script and recreating the problem.  Then I will try the Microsoft tool again and see if it finds a problem then.

Anyway,  thanks again for taking the time to help others out, much appreciated.  I can now use MC again, although I did enjoy learning about Foobar2000 and I really like the BubbleUPnP app.  It can control both Foobar2000 and MC.

[Spike1000]

You can find it here.

Could you please re-link the URL, looks like it didn't make it through ?

Spike

[blgentry]

My google-fu says that he probably meant this tool:

http://aka.ms/diag_StartMenu

Linked from this MS article:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/get-help-windows-start-menu

Brian.

[JimCo06]

Could you please re-link the URL, looks like it didn't make it through ?

Spike

Sorry. let me try again.  http://betanews.com/2016/06/21/fix-windows-10-start-menu/

This is a link to a short article.  The link to the Microsoft troubleshooter is in the small 3rd paragraph.

[chris635]

 I was actually giving up on MC and in the process of switching over to Foobar2000 when I found this solution.  

Good thing you didn't use Foobar2000, as the same problem with the start menu rears its ugly head with it as well.  

[JimCo06]

Good thing you didn't use Foobar2000, as the same problem with the start menu rears its ugly head with it as well.  

It seems to be a really screwy problem, it affects different systems differently.  I had installed Foobar2000 and had been using it for a few days before I found this solution.  The problem never occurred when I was using it (I know that doesn't mean it wouldn't have at some point).  But MC is the only program that I run that causes the problem on my system.  I can stream movies on Netflix (through a browser or their app) I can stream Spotify (again browser or app) for hours without the problem occurring.  However, if I play just one album in MC, when the album is done so is my Start Button.  Go figure!  Anyway, thanks to terrym@nz script I can use MC again.

[jimwallen]

Hover Menu/Start icon, right click and shut down. Easy!

[Awesome Donkey]

I've found restarting ShellExperienceHost.exe is enough to get the Start Menu working again without the need to kill/restart explorer.exe, in my experience.

[Slim_Fishguttz]

To put in my two cents (there's no longer a cent symbol on keyboards.  inflation, i guess) this problems only happens on one of my WIN10 machines and only if I specify MC's Mini view.  Go to standard view and the Start Menu is once more available.  I'm sure it's a Windows problem, but the way MC, et. al., display an interface has something to do with it.

Small problem, in that one can always right click on Windows Menu icon, in the Task Bar, and get a drop down menu that has the same functions.

[narbi]

I've been bothered by this problem for some time now and might have found a workaround.
Create a task with task manager to run at user logon, and execute this : C:\Windows\system32\ctfmon.exe
Remove every check mark that suggest to stop the task if it runs too long or anything, let it last forever.
Since 2 days and several 2-3 hours video sessions without a restart, my start menu, and keyboard in search/win apps are fine.
Let's hope it will last.

[jodokus]

Since the beginning of using Windows 10 I have this problem! Cannot believe I finally found this, tried every "solution" from the Microsoft guys. Is the script the best option, or the task from Narbi?

[narbi]

The task helps but is not enough to cure the problem sadly.
The best workaround I have so far is to create a batch file containing this :
taskkill /IM ShellExperienceHost.exe /F
Put the shortcut just next to your start button, if it's not working, launch the batch, and the start menu will be back.

[chris635]

Use the script. This will also handle any apps that suspended...ie windows store, calculator etc... it is seem less.

[jodokus]

I can't get the script to work, it crashes after double click....