@kaljukass - this IS a fresh install of 1709 from a formatted disk. I have all the same programs installed that I had with 1703. The issue, for me, appears to be specific to 1709.
Then it's hard to say what exactly is the reason, but there's some kind of "chemistry", because the Start Menu and all other menus itself work great. Think about what you have installed and changed. There must be a reason for this error.
Again, the Start Menu does NOT work "great" - as I said, it exists, nothing more. Resetting the default for it did nothing more than reset the tiles (when they decide to show up). It has not restore the *functionality*. System Restore also has no effect on this.
Oddly, this also affects the popup menu I used to get from the volume control to switch playback devices. Now I have to right-click and select PlayBack Devices in order to switch. IRRITATING, but not unworkable.
I did not want to bother with creating a new account - from everything I have read - once you have the problem, it will ALWAYS come back at some point. There is still no "official" response on it from M$. There is no defined cause.
I deploy windows 10 on a lot of costumers pc's and some of them do something similar when they have slow processors with fast SSDs. Try to press ctrl+alt+del and logout and login again. See if the start menu works after that. Also tell me if, when you logout, a "task scheduler something something" is hanging and requires you to force close it.
I've 2 Intel machine running with no problems plus 3 Laptops, all Intel, no problems with 1709! On the other hand, 3 machines AMD based have a lot of problems with build 1709, never had with older builds. The craziest error is the disappearance of the optical drives on those AMD Machines, even that optical drives working on that machines BIOS with no problem to even boot from it or install Build 1709!! Already tested an Asmedia SATA3 PCI-e controller today and could not get to work either! Waiting now for a Silicon SATA Controler and see what will happen with that! Overall, I'm very unhappy with the 1709 and start thinking to either go back to 1703, which worked with no problems, or change to Insider for the time being, until RS4 is released next year!
Your user profile collapsed after some windows updates. I tried many methods, but there is only way to fix this bug: Create a new windows user and move your work to this new user, then delete the old user !!! F**k Ms !!! They'll never fix it. // Sr for my English.
What's there to fix? On all systems i now have installed this new official release i never experienced the startmenu to fail.
Maybe u try to use Cortana in your country and it is not available for you´re country. Try resetting Cortana In a PowerShell window (run under the administrator context) > Get-AppXPackage -Name Microsoft.Windows.Cortana | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}