Windows 11 Start Menu not Working after Upgrading.

My experience upgrading Windows 10 to Windows 11 on launch day wasn't so smooth at first.

None of the modern fly-outs were functioning, including the start menu. And after trying out various fixes from the web, for some reason the Windows 10 start menu AND Windows Explorer came back #Windows11 This was specifically after a registry fix that was upvoted lots on Reddit.

Picture: Windows 10 start menu on Windows 10

The fix for me was to create a new local user account after upgrading to Windows 11, make it an Administrator, log in to this account and then removing the old account.

The steps to do that are as follows:

• Upgrade to Windows 11 using either the media creation tool or installation assistant. Link: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows11

If after the upgrade, you find that the start menu is not functioning, follow below steps.

• Press Ctrl + R on your keyboard.

• Then type control userpasswords2 and hit Enter

• Click Add and then Sign in without a Microsoft Account (not recommended)

• Make it a Local Account

• Type a name and click next, the user account is now created.

• Now, press Windows Key + I on your keyboard and navigate to Accounts > Family & Other users

• Click the account you just created, followed by clicking Change account type

• Choose: Administrator and hit OK

• Now, press Ctrl + Alt + Delete and click Sign Out.

• On the lock screen select the new user account. Windows will now set-up the account for first time use.

• After set-up is finished, confirm that the start menu and various other modern UI fly-outs work fine.

Now begins the process of migrating user settings and documents. Personally I have most of my important files on OneDrive. So I signed into the Microsoft account my Office subscription is tied to, which changed the account from local to a Microsoft account. You can do this by logging into an app such as Feedback Hub, and then following the steps for Windows to use this account for signing into all Microsoft apps.

All files on the previous user account can be found here:

C:\Users\%name%

Some application's settings might be in C:\Users\%name%\AppData for other apps like Android Studio its C:\Users\%name%\.android

Determine what app's settings need to be migrated and copy them over to the new user profile. If you need help for a specific app, then it's best to search the web for advice.