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I am living in a domain environment as an admin. In the last few week a problem appeared which affects the functionality of the Windows 11 Start Menu.

When usual-/non-admin user log on to their accounts and try to open the start-menu, it will crash. Pressing the windows-button will spawn the related process (StartMenuExperienceHost or just Start) but exits right away. Under Windows Logs\Application this application error appears:

<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  <System>
    <Provider Name="Application Error" Guid="{a0e9b465-b939-57d7-b27d-95d8e925ff57}" />
    <EventID>1000</EventID>
    <Version>0</Version>
    <Level>2</Level>
    <Task>100</Task>
    <Opcode>0</Opcode>
    <Keywords>0x8000000000000000</Keywords>
    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2023-11-30T11:11:44.8723211Z" />
    <EventRecordID>2000</EventRecordID>
    <Correlation />
    <Execution ProcessID="9852" ThreadID="9904" />
    <Channel>Application</Channel>
    <Computer>secret-computer-name.domain.com</Computer>
    <Security UserID="S-1-5-21-1659004503-562591055-725345543-1625" />
  </System>
  <EventData>
    <Data Name="AppName">RuntimeBroker.exe</Data>
    <Data Name="AppVersion">10.0.22621.2506</Data>
    <Data Name="AppTimeStamp">a20f9b3f</Data>
    <Data Name="ModuleName">windowsudk.shellcommon.dll</Data>
    <Data Name="ModuleVersion">10.0.22621.2506</Data>
    <Data Name="ModuleTimeStamp">78ce9ced</Data>
    <Data Name="ExceptionCode">c0000005</Data>
    <Data Name="FaultingOffset">000000000010f27d</Data>
    <Data Name="ProcessId">0x368</Data>
    <Data Name="ProcessCreationTime">0x1da237e00660983</Data>
    <Data Name="AppPath">C:\Windows\System32\RuntimeBroker.exe</Data>
    <Data Name="ModulePath">C:\windows\system32\windowsudk.shellcommon.dll</Data>
    <Data Name="IntegratorReportId">071e2f64-79b2-4b27-9d6f-f730fc97b665</Data>
    <Data Name="PackageFullName">Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost_10.0.22621.2506_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy</Data>
    <Data Name="PackageRelativeAppId">runtimebroker07f4358a809ac99a64a67c1</Data>
  </EventData>
</Event>

So far, I already tried several fixes:

  • Repair the system with: 
    sfc /scannow
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
  • Reset the Start-Menu and Shell-Application (with admin-rights): 
    Get-AppxPackage *Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost* | Reset-AppxPackage
Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.Windows.StartMenuExperienceHost | Reset-AppxPackage
  • Re-register all system apps: 
    Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers |Where-Object {$_.InstallLocation -like "*SystemApps*"} | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

My next take would be to replace windowsudk.shellcommon.dll.

Is there a solution to this kind of problem? Note that on every admin-account it works flawless, but if a non-admin logs on the problem occurs.

I customized the Start Menu with a block of JSON via an Intune-Policy.

hmaier
  • 73

1 Answers1

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The root of the problem was permission-related. The start-menu was crashing because usual domain-users haven't had access to some programms specified in the json.

You need to make sure that all paths you specify in the json, are not just accessible to you, the admin, but also to any other user which receives your policy.

The above log give us an hint with the line:

<Data Name="ExceptionCode">c0000005</Data>

which tells us about an access-violation.

Unfortunately I cannot give you the exact diff of both json-blocks for example-reasons, because I don't have permisson to the related intune-tenant anymore.

hmaier
  • 73