Windows 11 Start Menu Missing in New Update

Microsoft users held their breath when a new update to Windows 11 was announced. The update in question, KB5010414, would add a slew of exciting new features and a number of features that would give Windows 11 the well-liked and trusted functionality of its more established contemporary, Windows 10.

The crucial update has now arrived on Windows 11 devices the world over, and it has made good on its feature-loaded promise. As with any update, users expected a few bugs, but the performance issues and glitches that shipped with KB5010414 are far more serious and concentrated than users’ wildest OS-based nightmares.

After only a couple of weeks in action, the update is already infamous for breaking printing, causing critical systems to overheat considerably, and even pulling a disappearing act on the Start menu. Reports have come in from social media platforms like Reddit as well as Microsoft’s official Feedback Hub. Users on both platforms say that when they hover their mouse cursor over icons pinned to the taskbar, the Start menu disappears entirely. According to Microsoft, the issue is the Widgets icon that, in this update, has moved to its new home on the left-hand side of the taskbar. 

Here is the official statement from Microsoft regarding this particularly inconvenient bug: 

‘We’re working on this, but we believe passing over the widgets icon as you move your mouse might be what’s causing this. We’d recommend carefully avoiding it (the widgets icon) as you move your mouse into the Start menu as a workaround for now.’

While this feels like Microsoft’s classic claim that the problem is not a bug, merely a new feature, it’s always welcome to see that they are indeed working on a more permanent solution. The statement does, however, sound like a corporate giant shifting blame onto the users of its software. 

It isn’t yet clear how Microsoft will implement the fix or when we can expect to not have to carefully avoid the widgets icon, but rest assured a fix is inbound. While you wait for the fix,  check out our articles on the Windows 11 Taskbar update to see if there are any new features you’ve missed; just don’t accidentally hover over that Widgets icon as you do.