From PC World: Peruse the “Known issues” section of the release notes for the latest release of Windows 11 22H2, and you’ll see “Third-party UI customization apps might prevent the Start menu from opening” right at the top. Those apps might be familiar to anyone who’s turned to aftermarket tools to return some Windows 10 functionality to the smoother, cleaner, and markedly less functional Windows 11 Start menu and taskbar. Microsoft isn’t particularly interested in fixing the issue. The official recommendation for the 22621.30000 build is, “uninstall them.”
“We recommend uninstalling any third-party UI customization app before installing “KB5028254 to prevent this issue,” says the documentation, with further instructions to contact customer support for the app developer if your Start menu has already disappeared. According to XDA, several users of the awesome and popular ExplorerPatcher program are experiencing the issue. The free, open-source program adds back features from the Windows 10 taskbar and alt-tab interface.
Of course, Microsoft doesn’t have a responsibility to support users of apps that deliberately alter the user interface it’s designed. But usually the company at least tries to accommodate Windows users when its updates cause issues for popular software. In this case, the company seems uninterested, recommending that people simply stop using the tools or take their problems to the developers instead. Undoubtedly, the developers of such tools will attempt to fix the problems on their end, as has happened before.
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