Mysterious issue with programs not opening on Windows 10

fatryan

[H]ard|Gawd
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Feb 19, 2004
Messages
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For months I've been having this weird issue in Windows 10 Enterprise where programs won't open until I open the start menu. This is only an issue on my company's desktop at work, whether I'm working in the office or remoteing in. My home machine running Windows 10 Pro doesn't have this issue.

It mostly occurs with Windows File Explorer, but I've had it happen with a few other programs (Excel, PDFXchange Editor, etc). I'll have one instance of the program open, and I'll try to open a second instance. When I do this, nothing launches. I could wait for days and it will never launch. However the second I click the start menu, it launches immediately. Sometimes the problem is intermittent, but usually it is repeatable.

I've filed a ticket with my company's Helpdesk for this and other issues back in December 2019, and they can't seem to figure out the problem. They cleared some cache in Windows at one point which helped but only for a short period, at which point it was back to the normal issue. Since then, they've completely re-imaged my computer and just a week or so ago gave me an entirely different computer to test with. The issue just started happening on the new computer this morning. My old computer had software and drivers installed on it for my personal use (Sound Blaster, Logitech, 1Password, Brave); this test rig has none of these installed. Nobody else at the office I've talked to has ever had this problem. We lease our machines, so I'm pretty sure everyone has the same specs. I know my old computer and this current test rig have identical specs, which are:
  • Dell OptiPlex 7050
  • Windows 10 Enterprise v.10.0.17763
  • i7-7700
  • AMD Radeon R7 450
  • Intel HD Graphics 630
  • 16GB RAM
  • PC401 NVMe SK hynix 256GB (boot drive)
I think my company uses some kind of virtualization or containers, but I don't know enough about that stuff to verify.

I checked Windows error reporting, and the only errors listed today were for IEXPLORER.EXE at 9:30pm...3 hours in the future. So it seems like the system clock is off at a minimum. I'm wondering if this might be related or if it's some other hardware issue since I'm the only one experiencing it. A conflict of some sort? The only hardware conflicts listed are the following, one being about the CMOS cloclk.

HW Conflicts.PNG


Any clue what could be causing this issue? And suggestion on things to check? I do not have admin privileges, so I need to do a lot of things through Helpdesk.
 
If you still youse IE for something, it's a sign your IT department is a hack job.
 
If you still youse IE for something, it's a sign your IT department is a hack job.
The only thing we've ever had to use IE for was a client specific program that runs in silverlight, but they just switched over to html5 last week. So no, we don't have to use IE. My company also officially supports chrome and FF.
 
I have a very similar problem. Some apps (e.g. Google Chrome) do not start when I search for them in the search box next to start menu.

I have to go through Start menu. Never figured out why this happens.
 
I have a very similar problem. Some apps (e.g. Google Chrome) do not start when I search for them in the search box next to start menu.

I have to go through Start menu. Never figured out why this happens.
The same happened to me with powershell and a few other programs. This is different from the instances where searching for applications sometimes won't work at all, for any app. That happens too. This is specifically, some applications never being found via search.
 
The same happened to me with powershell and a few other programs. This is different from the instances where searching for applications sometimes won't work at all, for any app. That happens too. This is specifically, some applications never being found via search.
Ah yes...ever since they introduced Cortana I never managed to find any apps (although reforced indexing a couple of files). Sometimes I only find apps when I enter the exact name.

For searching files I use "Everything" which is very fast and amazing...but it is for files only
 
That's not really the same problem i have. I can find apps without issue, in fact the apps i most often have this problem with are pinned to my start menu. The issue is that when i try to launch a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc instance of one of these apps, the app never launches. At least... It will not launch until i click the start button. That's the key: the other instances will launch, but they do it only after i go back and click start again. It's just a real nuisance problem.
 
That's not really the same problem i have. I can find apps without issue, in fact the apps i most often have this problem with are pinned to my start menu. The issue is that when i try to launch a 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc instance of one of these apps, the app never launches. At least... It will not launch until i click the start button. That's the key: the other instances will launch, but they do it only after i go back and click start again. It's just a real nuisance problem.
I see. In my case, those apps even the 1st instance does not start at all unless I go to Start Menu
 
I see. In my case, those apps even the 1st instance does not start at all unless I go to Start Menu
I have not experienced that myself. They always launch the first instance for me.
 
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