Solved Start menu disappearing after a few second or before if clicked on

Graulges · Aug 22, 2025

Had the problem as above after years without anything significant. Right click menu on the start button continued to work just fine as did everything else as far as I could tell. Logs showed nothing useful (to me). I tried searching on here with no success but I will admit that's probably my fault. Anyway, I remembered some posts suggesting repair update as a solution for some problems so I did the using WU but nothing changed so in the end I just restored the C: drive from a Macrium backup and that sorted it but I'm left wondering what caused it. It wasn't after an update and I hadn't done anything that might have caused it. I was surprised the repair didn't correct it so I'm wondering what was different in the full restore that sorted a system problem.

Spunk · Aug 22, 2025

You restored your computer to an image that was created when everything was working correctly, so of course everything is going to be working correctly.

This could happen because some files became missing or corrupted. There are too many variables without knowing the full history of what happened just before this problem surfaced. Just be happy that you keep current images of your computer to restore when things go south.

Graulges · Aug 23, 2025

Spunk said:
You restored your computer to an image that was created when everything was working correctly, so of course everything is going to working correctly.

Yes, but I was hoping to find out what was wrong including trying another profile to see if it was to do with that. I did the repair just because I'd never done one before but I knew I had the disk image so when all else failed I used that. Of course, I could have started with that....

Spunk · Aug 23, 2025

There will be no logs in Windows since you restored your previous image, so there is no real way of knowing.

Graulges · Aug 24, 2025

I looked before I restored it's obvious nothing from that install wound have remained after restoring an image.

PaulBwxm · Oct 8, 2025

If anybody else has this problem, there's a clue to the cause in the initial comment.

I was being driven bananas by this! I set up a lot of new machines with Windows 11 and to help with data transfer I used Macrium Reflect.
I pay for Macrium on my main machines, but for transient work, I make a duplicate of an old laptop disk and mount the image on the new (typically Windows 11 machine) using Macrium 8 Free (v.8.0.7783) on both.

It appears that this version of Macrium Reflect Free impacts the Windows 11 menu. It's fine on Windows 10. Uninstalling Macrium from the W11 machine clears the problem.

I hope that someone finds this info useful as I lost a fair amount of time (not to mention backtracking, making painstaking numbers of System Restore points, trying fixes etc.) before I realised where the problem lay!

ramrunner · Oct 16, 2025

PaulBwxm said:
If anybody else has this problem, there's a clue to the cause in the initial comment.

I was being driven bananas by this! I set up a lot of new machines with Windows 11 and to help with data transfer I used Macrium Reflect.
I pay for Macrium on my main machines, but for transient work, I make a duplicate of an old laptop disk and mount the image on the new (typically Windows 11 machine) using Macrium 8 Free (v.8.0.7783) on both.

It appears that this version of Macrium Reflect Free impacts the Windows 11 menu. It's fine on Windows 10. Uninstalling Macrium from the W11 machine clears the problem.

I hope that someone finds this info useful as I lost a fair amount of time (not to mention backtracking, making painstaking numbers of System Restore points, trying fixes etc.) before I realised where the problem lay!

Oh having this problem right now with a brand new install of 11 with Macrium Free on it. I'll finish restoring data then uninstall Macrium and see whether it fixes things. Thanks

Spunk · Oct 18, 2025

Macrium Reflect 8.07783 Free works fine for me on Windows 11 Pro 25H2. And does not conflict with any other software.

If you are having an issue with Macrium, you can try Hasleo Backup Suite Free
Which many people have moved over to.

Graulges · Oct 19, 2025

My Macrium Reflect 8.07783 Free doesn't seem to have been the cause of my problem it's running fine without being uninstalled/reimstalled.

froggyranita · Nov 18, 2025

Hello, i have the exact same problem! I use Macrium Reflect Free 8.0.7783 and when i click on the start menu on W11 it appears and then disappears a few seconds afterwards.
I uninstall Macrium Reflect and then everything is fine, i reinstalled it and the problem reappears.
I tried disabling the Macrium services but it did not help.
What i realised: changing the display resolution to a very low resolution works (but then everything is really too big on the screen)
On another laptop with similar configuration i have no issue but what i saw is that on that one W11 still has the old start menu...

Next steps: i used the Hasleo software which seems to do its job but its lacking quite a lof of features that Macrium Free has.
I will probably uninstall Macrium and wait for some Microsoft updates to hopefully solve that issue.
I can live without Macrium installed as i have a recovery USB with it installed and the day i need to mount/create a backup I just can just reinstall the software.

Have a good day

Pascal

Winuser · Nov 18, 2025

froggyranita said:
I can live without Macrium installed as i have a recovery USB with it installed and the day i need to mount/create a backup I just can just reinstall the software.

If I'm not mistaken, one can use the Macrium boot disk to also make images.

Sempiterna · Nov 19, 2025

After a day of trying to fix things, I found out what is causing this problem where the startmenu hangs and then disappears (crashes according to the event viewer). It is indeed associated with Macrium Reflect (Free), and for me the problem only appears when there is an Macrium image file (mrimg) in the recent files list, and in such position where it is shown on the startmenu. If the recent files list is so large where this file is no longer visible, it works again until I click "more".

Clearing the recent files cache from windows explorer also clears this file from the startmenu cache, and allows the startmenu to work again. Ofcourse until I mount a mrimg file again and that file shows up in the recent files list. To permanently solve it, you should either allow less pins to be shown in the startmenu's recommended/recent section or disable that option completely in Settings -> personalization -> start .

Spunk · Nov 19, 2025

You should stop Macrium Reflect from running in the background.
Right click the Taskbar and choose Task Manager, go to the Startup Items tab, if listed, Right click it and choose Disable which disables it from starting with Windows.

In Macrium Click the Life Preserver icon titled Rescue on the toolbar create a bootable USB Flash drive. Select your flash drive and click Build button.
When you want to do a Macrium Backup, boot off of the USB Flash drive which is a version of Macrium that is Outside of Windows and do your back and restore that way.

froggyranita · Nov 20, 2025

Sempiterna said:
After a day of trying to fix things, I found out what is causing this problem where the startmenu hangs and then disappears (crashes according to the event viewer). It is indeed associated with Macrium Reflect (Free), and for me the problem only appears when there is an Macrium image file (mrimg) in the recent files list, and in such position where it is shown on the startmenu. If the recent files list is so large where this file is no longer visible, it works again until I click "more".

Clearing the recent files cache from windows explorer also clears this file from the startmenu cache, and allows the startmenu to work again. Ofcourse until I mount a mrimg file again and that file shows up in the recent files list. To permanently solve it, you should either allow less pins to be shown in the startmenu's recommended/recent section or disable that option completely in Settings -> personalization -> start .

Hello, your solution does indeed work ! Thanks for sharing.

Regarding running Macrium from an USB drive is in my opinion not as handy when it comes to explore an image and copy files from that image to a new disk.
As i don't use Macrium every day nor do i explore images often i will keep Macrium installed and use "Sempiterna"'s solution.

Regards, Pascal

Spunk · Nov 20, 2025

If you have Macrium installed on your computer, as long as it doesn't start with Windows,
You can Explore the image in Windows that you backed up with the Rescue Flash drive and you Copy the image or files from it in Windows.

You would just use the Rescue Flash drive to make images, make incremental backups or restore an Image.

raichea · Jan 27, 2026

I've been having this problem on my laptop since mid-December but have only recently pinned it down to the free edition of Macrium Reflect. It seems that, in my case at least, the problem occurs when I explore an image and assign a drive letter to go poking around in the image. As soon as I do this, I get the non-responsive start menu that disappears after a few seconds. I can get the start menu to respond again by tweaking a couple of the start menu settings (e.g. switch Show recently added apps OFF then ON again). Unfortunately, however, my Start menu customisation is wiped out - all my pinned items are removed and the default start menu replaces them. Really annoying, but at least I know what causes it now.

Initially I searched on Google for Start Menu reset (among others) and drew a blank. It was only when I decided MR was a factor and added Macrium Reflect to the search that I found this thread.

I purchased the v8 Home edition some time ago for use on my main system and that doesn't exhibit this problem.

raichea · Jan 27, 2026

Hmm... spoke too soon! My main machine has just suffered the same problem with the purchased version. I've never had a problem with simply creating images - it seems specific to mounting images to explore.

CodeRat · Mar 8, 2026

@Sempiterna is correct, it's the .mrimg in the Start Menu Recommended section which shows your most recently accessed files. The easiest fix for me was to bring up File Explorer, find the file(s) ending in .mrimg in the Recent list, right-click and choose "Remove from list". You just have to remember to do that anytime you open one of the backup files.

raichea · Mar 9, 2026

Easier than that, but still requiring a feat of memory, I've found that mounting images from within the MR8 GUI doesn't populate the recent files list and thus avoids the problem.

MR X doesn't suffer the same issue, I've found (I downloaded the trial), so I assume there's been a change in Windows that's caused the issue.

ramrunner · Apr 21, 2026

Sempiterna said:
After a day of trying to fix things, I found out what is causing this problem where the startmenu hangs and then disappears (crashes according to the event viewer). It is indeed associated with Macrium Reflect (Free), and for me the problem only appears when there is an Macrium image file (mrimg) in the recent files list, and in such position where it is shown on the startmenu. If the recent files list is so large where this file is no longer visible, it works again until I click "more".

Clearing the recent files cache from windows explorer also clears this file from the startmenu cache, and allows the startmenu to work again. Ofcourse until I mount a mrimg file again and that file shows up in the recent files list. To permanently solve it, you should either allow less pins to be shown in the startmenu's recommended/recent section or disable that option completely in Settings -> personalization -> start .

This was the answer for me. For my client's PCs I used to install macrium, mount their old image, extract what files were needed to restore, then uninstall Macrium as I'm well aware of this problem when it started happening on my laptop but never on my desktop. This time it happened on my Desktop slightly different (Start Menu shows but I can't click on anything). Simply clearing the recent files does indeed fix the issue. Thank you so much Sempiterna. Very insightful and saves me having to uninstall!

Solved Start menu disappearing after a few second or before if clicked on

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