Many times, you would have felt a frozen taskbar or frozen start menu problem. In this situation, Windows Taskbar, Start Menu, and Windows Explorer do not work and it gets hanged or freeze on startup. The frozen taskbar/start menu problem mostly appears with Windows 8/10/11 OS. In this article, I will discuss in detail about reasons and solutions to this problem. I will also explain 10 easy methods to fix frozen taskbar/start menu issues in Windows 10/11 machines.
Method 1: Use Advanced System Repair Tool to unfreeze Windows Explorer, Start Menu, and Taskbar.
There are many reasons that may result in the taskbar frozen problem in Win 10/11 like corrupted system files, incorrect registry settings, virus or malware in your PC, Graphics is not working properly, outdated system software and driver etc. The best solution to fix this problem permanently is using the Advanced System Repair Tool. This tool scans for the bugs and fixes almost all the issues with Windows OS.
dll files, exe files, sys files, various types of services, databases, etc so, it is not possible to keep monitoring all the files always. A brilliant PC Optimizer tool repairs damages, fix errors, update windows and drivers, and eliminate various types of errors silently. Outbyte PC Repair Tool does all the above task easily and provides you an errorfree and smooth Windows environment to work so that you can focus on your business only.
Step 2. SCAN your Windows PC
Step 3. Click Fix button to Repair Error
Method 2: Press Windows Key + CTRL + SHIFT + B
This is one of the useful shortcuts that will simply restart your graphics card and fix the issue instantly. If the frozen issue is happening due to a simple graphics problem, then it will be resolved by pressing the following shortcuts key.
Windows Key + CTRL + SHIFT + B
Method 3: Restart Windows Explorer
Restarting Windows Explorer means restarting all the startup components including the graphics driver. So, if the taskbar is stuck at startup due to an unknown reason, it gets easily fixed.
There are 2 easy ways to restart Windows Explorer.
If somehow Task Manager is not opening, you can use the command prompt to restart Windows Explorer.
Windows Key + R to open the Run command. Type cmd and press CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER. It will ask you for the administrative confirmation, click yes.
explorer.exe and your desktop and taskbar will be removed, and you will see a black desktop without a taskbar. Don’t worry, in the next step, you will be able to launch fresh explorer.exe.taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
start explorer.exe
Method 4: Using Windows Powershell
You can use Windows Powershell to unfreeze the Windows taskbar.
CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER.
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml”}
Method 5: Check whether User Manager is enabled or not.
If User Manager is disabled by your administrator or due to installing software, you may face an issue with the taskbar. You must check whether the user manager is enabled or not.
Method 6: Repair Windows File System
If there is any sort of corruption in the Windows File System, then it gets unable to load the necessary startup files and starts creating issues like taskbar frozen and so on. You must scan and repair Windows File System using sfc /scannow command. This command runs on Commands Prompt and doesn’t take a longer time to complete.
sfc /scannow
If the Taskbar and Windows Explorer are completely frozen then the best idea is to kill Windows Explorer completely and then start it again using the task manager.
Method 8: Disable Recently Open Items
When the taskbar is started, it loads all the list of startup items including recently open items. Disabling the recently open items option may speed up the loading of the start menu and taskbar.
Method 9: Disable Third Party Services
If two services are conflicting with each other, the start menu and taskbar go to a deadlock situation. In order to fix this issue, you must disable all the third-party services and restart the PC to check whether your problem is fixed or not.
Method 10: Restore Windows 10/11
This is the last option if none of the above methods work for you. When you select a restore point to restore windows, it will remove installed apps, updates, and drivers after the date of the restore point. It will not remove your files, folders, and saved data on the hard drive.
Summary
In this article, I have tried to explain how to fix the freezing or hanging taskbar, Start menu, and Explorer problem. There are 10 useful methods are defined that will help you to get rid of the freezing start menu/taskbar problem.
