When I open the Start menu and type an app name such as "calculator," the menu briefly turns black and remains that way for a few seconds before displaying the search results. Pressing Enter immediately still launches the app, so the search itself seems to work even though the interface freezes visually. This started suddenly about a week ago, and my computer has also been taking longer to boot.
I tried changing search settings in the Registry to prevent online results and ran the SFC system-file check, but neither helped. What could be causing this, and what other troubleshooting steps should I try?
1 Answer
Try clearing temporary files, disabling search history, changing “Find my files” to Classic, and reviewing unnecessary startup programs in Task Manager. Updating your graphics drivers is also worth trying, since the black Start menu could be related to how Windows is rendering the search panel. You can also test a separate file-search utility such as Everything, although that would be a workaround rather than a fix for the Start menu.
I cleared roughly 40 GB of temporary files, but search history was already empty and disabling SysMain didn’t change anything. I only have four startup items, including Windows Security and the Waves audio service. I’m also updating from Windows 10 to Windows 11 in case a system update resolves it.