14 DAY TRIAL // The Start menu and Cortana are two of the new features that are bundled into Windows 10, but for unknown reasons, both fail to work on some computers, and for the moment there’s no patch to address this bug.
The first time we reported about this issue was on August 4, and despite the fact that Microsoft confirmed it at that time, no fix is yet available.
Boot into Safe Mode, then boot normally
In a statement today, however, a company engineer publicly acknowledges the issue, revealing that the two features could stop working with one of these two errors displayed to the user: “Critical Error – Start menu and Cortana aren’t working. We’ll try to fix it the next time you sign in.” or “Critical Error – Your Start menu isn’t working. We’ll try to fix it the next time you sign in.”
The easiest way to repair the problem, at least temporarily, is to boot into Safe Mode and then start your computer normally, according to Microsoft’s own instructions.
“We are aware that some customers are experiencing this error, and are actively investigating. You may be able to temporarily resolve the issue by booting to Safe Mode, and then immediately booting back into normal mode. This workaround may resolve your problem for a while, however the error may return later,” a company support engineer said.
Microsoft hasn’t said anything about a potential fix that could be delivered via Windows Update, but given the fact that Redmond’s rolling out cumulative updates every once in a while, a patch might arrive at any time.
In the meantime, keep in mind that booting into Safe Mode is one easy fix, but Microsoft does not guarantee that this works every time and for every user. And yet, if nothing else works, you might consider giving it a try too.