I am sure you must have faced a situation where the Start Menu stops responding. It either doesn’t open or sometimes it just hangs on the screen wide open. There is now a separate process available for Start Menu — StartMenuExperienceHost.exe. In this guide, we will share how you can restart Start Menu in Windows 11/10.
How to Restart Start Menu in Windows 11/10
If the Start menu is stuck, frozen or not responding, you can restart Start Menu by restarting its StartMenuExperienceHost.exe process.
- Right-click on the taskbar, and click on the Task Manager option.
- Sort the processes by name, and scroll to find a program with name START.
- Right-click on this Start process, and select End task.
- The start menu process will shut down and restart after a second or two.
If you have any problem with the Start menu not responding or a frozen Start menu, then this is an easy way to fix it. This will not reset the Start menu i.e. all your apps, and groups will stay as you had arranged it.
Earlier, I used to kill restart Windows Explorer to get the same job done – but now this is a better option.
You can also restart StartMenuExperienceHost.exe using Command Prompt or PowerShell.
If you are interested in finding more, in the Task Manager, expand the Start process, and then right-click on the Start process, and choose Open file location.
It will be available under:
C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost_xxxxxxxxx
It is the same location where Microsoft stores Cortana, File Picker, Edge Dev Tools, Lock App, etc.
If the Start menu doesn’t start itself, navigate to this location. Double-click to launch it, and the Start menu should behave as expected.
Restart the Start Menu process if you find that your Windows Start Menu opens slowly.
PS: You can also add Restart Start Menu to the Desktop Context Menu.
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