Personalization Add Restart Start Menu to Context Menu in Windows 11

Brink · Jun 26, 2023

This tutorial will show you how to add "Restart Start menu" to the desktop context menu for all users in Windows 10 and Windows 11.

Microsoft separated the Start menu into its own process, called StartMenuExperienceHost.exe. This has a number of benefits, including simplifying debugging and insulating Start from potential issues impacting other surfaces.

This will allow you restart the Start menu as needed without having to restart the explorer.exe process.

Restarting the StartMenuExperienceHost.exe process can be helpful if the Start menu will not open, frozen, or acting buggy.

If you like, you can add Restart Start menu to the desktop context menu to make it easy to restart the Start menu on demand as needed.

While you must be signed in as an administrator to add or remove the "Restart Start menu" context menu, all users can use the context menu.

EXAMPLE: "Restart Start menu" context menu

You will need to click/tap on Show more options first by default, then click/tap on Restart Start menu.

Here's How:

1 Do step 2 (add) or step 3 (remove) below for what you would like to do.

2 Add "Restart Start menu" to Desktop Context Menu

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Add_Restart_Start_menu_to_desktop_context_menu.reg

Download

(Contents of .reg file)

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell\RestartStart]
"icon"="C:\\Windows\\System32\\UNP\\UNPUX.dll,-101"
"MUIVerb"="Restart Start menu"
"Position"="Bottom"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell\RestartStart\command]
@="cmd /c taskkill /im StartMenuExperienceHost.exe /F /T"

3 Remove "Restart Start menu" from Desktop Context Menu

This is the default setting.

A) Click/tap on the Download button below to download the file below, and go to step 4 below.

Remove_Restart_Start_menu_from_desktop_context_menu.reg

Download

(Contents of .reg file)

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell\RestartStart]

4 Save the .reg file to your desktop.

5 Double click/tap on the downloaded .reg file to merge it.

6 When prompted, click/tap on Run, Yes (UAC), Yes, and OK to approve the merge.

7 You can now delete the downloaded .reg file if you like.

That's it,
Shawn Brink