Fix: Start and taskbar problems on Windows 11 build 22449 or 22000.176

If you are actively testing Windows 11 Preview Builds, and have some issues with the Start Menu and Taskbar after latest builds, this article is for you. So recently Microsoft released Preview Build 22449 in active development branch (RS_PRERELEASE). The company also released Preview Build 22000.176 in the Beta channel. But after the release of these Preview Builds, some users reported problems with Start menu and Taskbar. In this article, we’ll see how to fix Start and taskbar problems on Windows 11 build 22449 or 22000.176.

With Preview Build 22449, Windows insiders part of on the Dev channel are switched to active development branch. Here is the screenshot of Preview Build 22449 being offered on a Windows 11 device.

According to Microsoft, “Some users reported that Start and Taskbar were unresponsive and Settings and other areas of the OS wouldn’t load. We quickly discovered an issue with a server-side deployment that went out to Insiders and canceled that deployment.” This should have minimized the number of Windows Insider affected. But in case if Start menu, Taskbar or Settings won’t load on your Windows 11, or if they’re unresponsive, you can fix this problem manually.

Fix: Start and taskbar problems on Windows 11 build 22449 or 22000.176

Following workaround has been shared by Microsoft in this official build announcement post:

1. Use CTRL-ALT-DEL and choose to open Task Manager.

2. Choose “More details” at the bottom of Task Manager to expand Task Manager.

3. Go to “File” and choose “Run new task”.

4. Type “cmd” in the “Open” field.

5. Paste the following (everything in bold):

reg delete HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\IrisService /f && shutdown -r -t 0

6. Hit enter, and then your PC should reboot. After rebooting, everything should be back to normal.

After trying the above steps, you should be able to fix the problem instantaneously. If you still continue to face this issue, kindly report via Feedback hub. You can launch Feedback hub by pressing + F.

Hope this helps!