Possible Fix for Start Menu / Microsoft Store apps not working after file based clone

Winclone
1

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/37942.start-button-start-menu-not-working-in-windows-10-creator-update.aspx

2

This issue has now been resolved. See:

tim

3

Hmmmm…well, first of all Tim, I Thank You for a fix! I for one deeply appreciate it!

We all do dumb things from time to time, and I guess this is one for me. But during my investigation for a fix, I came across a possible solution of deleting the BootCamp partition on the internal drive, which I did! Well, with the “dead” start menu in Windows, I thought all was lost…still have my Winclone backup image, but I can’t make another image of BootCamp with 6.1.2. Can my backup image restore a BootCamp partition back to the internal drive with 6.1.2?

Once again, Thanks for the hard work!

Jake

4

I’ll post instructions in bit that should get you back up and running.

5

Here are basic steps that I followed to get the Start Menu working (as well as most/all of the Windows apps). The basic idea is to restore permissions from a stock version of Windows 10 Creators Update to the AppRepository folder. I exported permissions on a working system using icacls for the AppRepository directory in c:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows. In order to restore permissions, i had to take ownership and add my current user to the files / folders affected. After the import is done, I then reset the permissions and ownership back.

Here is step by step:

  1. Copy the permission file that was exported from a known good system to the root of the C: drive. Once exported, I mounted the boot camp volume as read/write in Winclone 6 and then dragged the file from the Finder to the Boot Camp volume. You can download the file I used here and a zipped up version here

  2. Boot into Windows 10 that has the Start Menu that will not open and Open up a Admin Power Shell:
    Press Command-X to open menu, then select Windows power shell(admin)

  3. Change directory to the parent folder of AppRepository:
    cd c:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows

  4. Take ownership of all the files and folders from AppRepository and enclosing files/folders:
    takeown /F AppRepository /R

  5. Grant current user full control on all files and folders from AppRepository and enclosing files/folders. My current user is “tcadmin” so replace that with the name of your current user:
    icacls AppRepository /grant tcadmin:F /T /C

  6. Restore from a known good machine using the file copied in step 1. There may be a some errors about files not found but the far majority of the permissions should be successful:
    icacls . /restore c:\AppRepo_export_full /C

  7. Now that the permissions are set correctly, we’ll set the ownership to the SYSTEM user. However, to do this, we give ourself full control over the files and folders and then set ownership. After we are all done, we’ll remove this full control permission. Make ownership of AppRepository and enclosing files/folders to the SYSTEM user (remember to replace tcadmin with your current user name):

icacls AppRepository /grant tcadmin:F /T /C
icacls AppRepository /setowner SYSTEM /T /C

  1. Make ownership of top level folders to (AppRport, packages, family) to NT Service\TrustedInstaller
    icacls AppRepository /setowner “NT Service\TrustedInstaller”
    icacls AppRepository\Packages /setowner “NT Service\TrustedInstaller”
    icacls AppRepository\Families /setowner “NT Service\TrustedInstaller”

  2. Now we remove ourselves from Full Control from AppRepository and enclosing files/folders:
    icacls AppRepository /remove:g tcadmin /T /C

That worked for and got the Start Menu functional, as well as the apps.

6

Tim,

Much appreciated! I mean…I really appreciate it! Don’t know how you keep up with what Apple and Microsoft changes.

Because of the support, just purchased another license, which makes three now.

You take care!

Jake