Tag: Start menu

Microsoft Defender Borks up the Start menu icons

Paul

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Microsoft Creates issues

This all started on Friday the 13th, 2023. We all started getting tickets galore for this issue, when we first saw this issue we thought it mgiht be something to do with company’s policies being changed and someone didn’t do their job testing it. Being that I am doing my job and trying to solve the issues that are at hand, I didn’t think twice that it was more globally than just our little corner of the company. As we get back into the office Monday we get even more of these tickets where the icons have disappeared and the little work around we sent out friday night still hasn’t solve some of the issues. Icons from all sorts of places have disappeared including stuff I didn’t even think would happen.

Well there it is, it seems Microsoft released an update that caused all the icons to disappear or not to function at all. I’ve been dealing with this issue for the past 5 days as our company scrambles to get the issue resolved for their employees. We’ve learned a few things and I will be glad to share it with you.

Icon restoration

There are several ways I’ve found that works to help restore the icons in the Start Menu.   One of the easiest way is to go to “Add and remove programs” and modify the app that isn’t showing up and Repair or reinstall if that is the option.  This is what we had to do at our location but that isn’t all we are having to do.  We are also having to do this for like Adobe and even Office 2016 but I am sure this affects all versions of Office.

Other ways you can restore icon is to registry edit the default icons and make them get repopulated with the right Icons.  I even go into default apps and reset that to help push the apps back into place.

Another way people have found tofix this issue at least with Office apps is to run it siliently and let it repair it selve in the background:

“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\ClientX64\OfficeClickToRun.exe” scenario=Repair platform=x86 culture=en-us DisplayLevel=False

Microsoft Defender

According to Microsoft it was a the Microsoft Defender ASR rules that caused all this in the first place.   I don’t Know how many IT Admins are happy right now, I am sure not because of all this that happened but It really makes you wonder how this got past the pre-test phase and how anyone would push out an update like this that caused so much trouble.

Many people are wondering how this happened but My real question is will it happened again.  This isn’t going to be a big post but a short one to help those fix the issue at hand and hopefully we get it solved as quickly as possible and everyone get’s back to a normal routine.

Why I uninstalled Microsoft Windows 11 Preview build?

Paul
Windows 11 — Isn’t the great!

I reinstalled Windows 10 and Deleted Windows 11!

I don’t know about everyone else but after my week long expedition into Windows 11, I just couldn’t handle the speed issues of the Windows 11 and the encryption.   I know it isn’t worth my time after all that to down grade to Windows 10 but I I felt it wasn’t going to get any smoother than that.  I also would of had to have deleted the partition anyways since it was locked to secure boot and UEFI.  I really didn’t want to try to convert it back to MBR.   I got my trust Windows 10 DVD and started it up and found the partitions I wanted to delete and then I reinstall Windows 10.   I will say that after wiping the hard drive and reinstalling Windows 10, and turning off all the Encryption crap and just booting into Windows has seen my load times go back to normal.

Windows 11 Problems

First off the main problem I had with Windows was the need to encrypt the Hard drive and I was using a NVME which should of been way faster than a standard SSD or Hard drive to boot up.   That wasn’t the case, I’d see the swirling load screen on my system for several seconds and then it would finally boot.  Due to the encryption that Microsoft says is required to run Windows 11, it just doesn’t cut it for me.   Even playing games like Minecraft was screwy and that isn’t even taking up that much memory at the most 2 GB or if you know how to do it 4 GB.   I’d play with Minecraft and the system would take forever to load up the next part of the map or even play Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 and It wouldn’t be sluggish there also.

The Start Menu

This was something that was just annoying, I think Microsoft wanted to look like an Apple device and bring the apple guys over because of the look.  I can’t understand why you would prevent people from reverting back to the old Windows 10 setup.  I can only wonder what people will do to find out what they are running and if it will actually be a good idea to keep the start menu in the middle of the screen.  Some people have these really long screens and it might help them.  I personally would like to move the taskbar anywhere on the outside of the screen, top or maybe right or left of the screen.  You wouldn’t be able to do that either.   Which will make people really mad.

I can’t see this being all about security

It just can’t be about viruses and malware or even the recent months of ransomware attacks that have been happening in the past year, due to the Covid19 situation around the world.  I have talked about how Windows will ultimately fail and we will see virus writers come up with some good viruses and malwares to compromise the Secure boot and even the TPM that is trying to be forced to be used by Windows.   I am sure it isn’t over, and if Microsoft isn’t going to change, we’ll see people leaving left and right to go to operating system that are much less restrictive and more open such as Linux.  In the end, I went back to Windows 10 because of the speed and performance, and I am not even thinking about Windows 11 until I find out what they will require when the system is finally released.   This will be a big deal to some but me, I am not interested in the so called security features of Windows 11.

 

My Initial thoughts on Windows 11!

Paul
Windows 11 — Just is!

It’s like pulling teeth!

I finally installed Windows 11 Windows Preview build into my system. Later last week I was wondering what they had done with Windows 11 and requirements. So I thought it would be a great idea to try to install Windows 11 with my current system that I built last year. Thanks to building this system just last year and thinking ahead, I got everything I could to prepare for the future needs. I even made sure it had TPM 2.0 just in case, I thought I’d not need this. I guess I was completely and most definitely wrong. I will say after talking about how to update Windows 10 to GPT and Secure Boot, that part went rather smoothly. I did find that if you have a Linux partition and a Windows partition then the converter will not be able to work. I had to erase the Linux Mint Distro partition to be able to convert it to GPT. I however divided the size to possibly install Linux mint along side Windows 11. I am curious to see just how well that will happen. That’s my next step in the next few days.

I didn’t like the setup

After converting the partitions and joining the Windows insiders program, I was able after a few attempts and fixing the CMOS.  It seems strange that I had to keep going into CMOS to enable even more things than I initially thought.   I had to enable secure boot, UEFI, and PTT (For those on Gigabyte Motherboards).   It wasn’t easy to say the least, I’d update one and the other and find out I had to enable more in the bios so Microsoft would see I met the requirements to download and install Windows 11.

Privacy is a Real concern!

I know on my Windows 10 system, I didn’t have my account linked to Microsoft but when I installed Windows 11.  It automatically linked my account to Microsoft.  I’d think if I am upgrading to Windows 11and it sees that it was a local account it would not link it to the Microsoft account.  The Bad news was I had to delete that account and remove all the data so Microsoft wouldn’t be watching me.  I had to re-install all my apps and loose some of my personally files but it was worth it to keep the information safe.  I wish I could of had an easy way to go back to my local account without having to jump through so many hoops.

It’s Just isn’t that good!

So far, after only using this for so many hours.  I can’t see any major differences that I will like.  The Start button will be an issue because I just don’t like it in the middle.   Also finding what I might need in the Settings is a little bit more interesting and difficult for me because they looked like they buried some of that.  I have also noticed the Windows 11 hack to revert my Windows start menu doesn’t work.  I’m going to try the Windows 11 preview builds some more but I am not that impressed with them and I might just go Windows 10 when Windows 11 finally get’s released unless they allow the users to use windows there own way, like No TPM, Or Secure boot.  I hope Linux will hurry up and make it easier for people to install Linux along side Windows 11.  I am almost sure there is a way just haven’t had time to explore the possibility.

Boot Times

After install Windows 11 and using my NVME drive, I have found the boot times to be a bit longer.  That was to expected because of the encryptions that is being used to quote “Secure” windows from any virus tampering.   I can’t see this being an extreme issue but I don’t  like the fact that it takes several more seconds on my NVME to boot up Windows when it would just boot almost instantly with my NVME.   They better fix that problem also because I don’t care about their so call security if I am sitting there waiting for the system boot.   All in All the Windows 11 experience isn’t as much a good thing as a bad thing.   I already know Virus writers are creating viruses to get around the so called security and I have done some research on the topic.  I can’t wait to say to Microsoft “I told you so“.

What’s your thoughts on Windows 11?  Have you tried it?  Will you install it even with the TPM and Secure boot requirements?  I’d like to hear your thoughts on the issue.  Why not leave a comment and tell me what you think about Windows 11.