Why isn’t the Start menu, Action Center, or Cortana Search responding after I rebuilt my Windows 10 WorkSpace?

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My Start menu, Action Center, or Windows Search isn't working after rebuilding my Amazon WorkSpaces Windows 10 WorkSpace. How can I fix this?

Short description

When you rebuild a WorkSpace, a new WorkSpace is created from the custom bundle. However, the D:\ drive, which contains the user profile, restores from the latest Amazon Elastic Block Store (Amazon EBS) snapshot of the volume. The user profile's TileDataLayer database is closely integrated with the Start menu, Action Center, and Cortana Search. A WorkSpace rebuild can create a mismatch between the information that the new Operating System has and the modified database within the user profile.

This issue can affect WorkSpaces that are launched or rebuilt from a custom bundle created before May 2019.

Your Windows 10 WorkSpace might exhibit one of the following symptoms because of the information mismatch:

  • Choosing the Windows Start menu doesn’t produce any effect.
  • Choosing Windows Action Center doesn’t produce any effect.
  • Windows Search doesn’t open from the taskbar.

Resolution

Repair Search functionality

1.    Connect to the WorkSpace from another user account using Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP).

2.    Navigate to the following location within the assigned user’s profile: D:%userprofile%\Appdata\local\packages

3.    Delete the Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy folder.

4.    Reboot the WorkSpace.

5.    Connect to the WorkSpace using the Amazon WorkSpaces client.

6.    Open Windows PowerShell as administrator, and then run the following command:

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers -Name Microsoft.windows.cortana | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml" -Verbose}

Expected output:

VERBOSE: Performing the operation "Register package" on target "C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy\AppXManifest.xml".
VERBOSE: Operation completed for: C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy\AppXManifest.xml

Search functionality resumes immediately.

Repair Start menu and Action Center functionality

1.    Navigate to the following location within the assigned user’s profile: D:%userprofile%\AppData\local\packages

2.    Delete the Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy folder.

3.    Open Windows PowerShell as administrator, and then run the following command:

Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "C:\Windows\SystemApps\ShellExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\AppXManifest.xml"}

Start menu functionality resumes immediately.

Custom bundle

If you use a custom bundle, be sure to update the bundle for future rebuilds.


Related information

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