I had a problem in Windows 10, which meant I couldn’t blog for 4 days:  After some updates and other changes, my Windows 10 Start Menu wouldn’t work. Not hardware as Window-L worked and if I login as another user on same machine, there were no issues. It must have been something in my user directory. This is what I tried and what worked. Includes how to remove and restore a user on Windows 10.

 

The Issue

This is the problem I was faced with: My Windows 10 has been working excellently since RTM, after one fix to do with Sleep, , although I had heaps of problems with the pre-release versions. Last week I changed the Windows configuration to include Hyper-V which required a reboot but when it rebooted it also did some updates. My system was slow and unresponsive after the reboot and the normal Start Menu wouldn’t work:

  • Click on the Start Menu no menu items showed
  • Right-click on Start, the normal items showed
  • Windows-L (go to login page) worked.
  • If I did (Cortana via text entry) search, items appeared but I couldn't activate any.
  • If I logged into an alternative user on my machine the Start Menu worked.

 

Two days before something went haywire with the touchpad and about that time I got a BSOD: The BSOD error I got was something to do with Watchdog, and was probably DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION. A System Restore  fixed that.

BSOD DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION

DPC_WATCHDOG_VIOLATION BSOD

 

For the issues at hand, none of the System Restores would solve the problem. I could see some fixes for this for earlier versions of Windows but none of these were relevant .So I investigated backing up my user data, removing my login and restoring it.

 

Backup

First thing to do was to back up my user data. Whilst the user removal provides an ability to back up user data, I prefer a complete backup of my user data, i.e. c:\User\David. Whilst I could have used xcopy with error parameters or just directly used File Explorer, I prefer robocopy mirroring: 

The source was my c:\Users\David  and the destination was in c:\Temp.

  • Log out of the errant user and login to the one that works.
  • Create a folder c:\Temp\David
  • File Explorer into c:\Users\David, and let it resolve your access limitations
  • Open a command prompt  in C:\Users\David  (Right click in File Explorer in that folder, Open command windows here will show) and run
  • robocopy . c:\Temp\David /MIR /R:0

The /R:0 means retries=0 thus handling any errant copying situations.

 

Deleting a User Account

To delete an account you need to be logged into an alternative administrative user account and logged out of the target account. There are two paths for actioning removal of a user account. One via the Control Panel and one via the Notifications (right of task bar). Use the Control Panel method as the other does not give you the option to back up the user data.  

  • Right-click Start Men,choose Control Panel --- User Accounts
  • Choose Manage Another Account—Select the Account to be deleted
  • Select Delete The Account, then press Keep Files
  • This will make a copy of your files on this user’s desktop. Its is though a subset of what was backed up with robocopy.

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You may now recreate the account whilst still in Control Panel but it might be safest to reboot back to there, in this other user’s account.

  • Recreate the user account now but don’t login to it yet. Copy your user data back first..

 

Restoring user data

  1. You might get away with copying the user data back before logging in the first time, but the user folder that the new login uses might be different.
    You might try copying things back and then logging in for the first time. Or login first and then copy.
    You might just copy all of the files that the deletion placed on the alternative user’s desktop. This will restore:
  • Desktop
  • Documents
  • Favourites
  • Music
  • Pictures
  • Videos

One noticeable absentee is Downloads, which you could just copy from the robocopy backup.

 

  1. I tried copying back all of my C:\Users\David folder from c:\Temp\David
  • Log into the new account then log out. Log into the alternative account
  • File Explorer to c:\Users\David and again let it resolve the alt user access.
  • Open a command prompt in c:\Temp\David as administrator
  • robocopy  . c:\Users\David /MIR /R:0

Note that the David folder name may now be slightly different, depending upon what the first login generated.

 

I then tried logging into the new account but the bugs I got before resurfaced.Sad smile

 

  1. My next try was to copy the files as per 1. plus Downloads and App Data

This similarly failed. The Start Menu didn’t work.

 

  1. Finally I fine tuned what was copied back by opening two File Explorer Instances, one showing c:\Temp\David and one showing c:\Users\David (or whatever it was now)
  • I placed these side by side and copied across a subset of folders.

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The temp version is on the the left and the user folder on the right.

  • The AppData plus one other folder weren’t copied.
  • This worked OK but I didn’t have my application settings.
  • Copying could be done directly using FileExplorer drag and drop , xcopy or robocopy

 

Other issues

I wanted to preserve my Outlook and LiveWriter data settings.

  • I tried getting the outlook files into the restored user area but that didn’t work. It was easier to re-download the data. Luckily I’ve gone onto an unlimited broadband plan lately!
  • I copied one Livewriter folder back across from temp C:\Temp\David_Jones\AppData\Roaming\Windows Live Writer.
    This restore many of my Livewriter plugins etc but I still needed to set up my blog site settings.
    There were some idiosyncrasies so it was easier to reinstall after all.

 

Visual Studio kept giving me some errors on loading although it seemed to work OK for Universal apps:

  • The 'DriverCommonPackage' package did not load correctly.
    The 'DriverTargetConfigPackage' package did not load correctly.
    The 'Microsoft.DriverKit.WdkTestPackage.DriverTestPackage, DriverTestPackage, Version=10.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' package did not load correctly.
    The 'Microsoft.MetadataAuthoring.DriverKit.MetadataMenuPackage, MetadataAuthoringMenu, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35' package did not load correctly.
    The 'Microsoft.DriverKit.Nmake2MsbuildUI.Nmake2MsbuildUIPackage, Nmake2MsbuildUI, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=9db32e5b579d0062' package did not load correctly.
    The 'Microsoft.SdvMenuCommand.SdvMenuCommandPackage, SdvMenuCommand, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null' package did not load correctly.

Looking into the xml error file there were messages such as:

  •   <entry>
        <record>95</record>
        <time>2015/08/30 04:21:40.427</time>
        <type>Error</type>
        <source>VisualStudio</source>
        <description>CreateInstance failed for package [Microsoft.SdvMenuCommand.SdvMenuCommandPackage, SdvMenuCommand, Version=0.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=null]</description>
        <guid>{3718CE5A-503F-4C55-8F70-3A4CC34FB1FB}</guid>
        <hr>80070002</hr>
        <errorinfo>Could not load file or assembly 'file:///C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\Windows Driver Kit\SdvMenuCommand.dll' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.</errorinfo>
      </entry>
    My first “fix” was to do a Repair install of Visual Studio but this didn’t fix and and probably wasn’t unnecessary.
  • All of the errors in the XML log were Windows Driver Kit related so I then did a reinstall of the Windows Driver Kit which did fix things. Smile

 

Summary

  • You can back up a user’s data from c:\User\\<Username>, delete the account,, restore the account then copy back most of the user data.
  • This can fix user specific bugs with the OS such as a non-functional Start Menu.

Restoring the AppData folder can be problematic though. In a lot of cases it may be optimal to reinstall an app after recreating the user account, whilst reusing existing saved data.


PS: After posting this my system developed a further problem: Sleep and Hibernation starting causing BSOD (Internal power error). I rolled back the recent AMD Radeon driver  update then disabled auto driver updates. iYou need to disable driver updates as Update will keep restoring the update.)They both now work like a charm!

  • Rollback Driver: Right-click Start Menu—Device Manager—Display Drivers—AMD Radeon HD4750M (Double-Click)—Driver Tab—Rollback

The version of this driver that works is 15.200.1045.0 dated 22 June 2015. Its the July version that sends things haywire.

  • Disable Driver Updates: Right-click Start Menu—System—Advanced system settings—Hardware Tab—Device Installation Settings—No and Never

There is more to this because Update still updated the driver today ??