Windows 11 Explorer and Taskbar Issues

[ivan_45th]

Hello everyone!
I upgraded Windows 10 to Windows 11 today and got these problems:
1) Explorer has an old design from Windows 10.
2) The taskbar has the old design from Windows 10 and the Start and Search buttons don't work.
Some time ago I installed an insider build and everything worked fine, however I went back to Windows 10 then to wait for the release version of Windows 11. Now I got these problems.
Does anyone know how I can fix this?

[#2]

Same Issue. I solved it by opening "Control" and change the date to a future day and restart.

[#3]

@thinh191Same issue. But not solved by change date and restart.

[#4]

I am also having this problem having previously rolled back to Windows 10 from preview release.

[#5]

Everyone I know with this problem did the same, rolled back from the release preview on Windows 10 and got this bug when upgrading from Windows 10 to the final Windows 11. Is there really no solution for this, except for a clean install of Windows 11?

[#6]

The start menu problem is resolved by the KB5006746 upgrade.

[#7]

Follow these steps in this order, and then reboot your computer:

1.) Download Windows 10 ISO Image to "C:\Win11_English_x64.iso"
2.) Download and Install WinRAR: https://www.win-rar.com/download.html?&L=0
3.) Extract ISO Image to "C:\Win11_English_x64"

4.) Start Powershell -> Start Menu -> Run -> taskmgr -> File -> Run new Task -> %SystemRoot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -> Select "Create this task with administrative privileges." -> Click OK.

Change the execution policy so you can run scripts locally:
5.) Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope LocalMachine -Force;

Use any one of these to verify which edition of Windows 11 you have installed:

6A.) Get-ComputerInfo -Property Windows*
6B.) Get-ComputerInfo | select WindowsProductName, WindowsVersion, OsHardwareAbstractionLayer
6C.) systeminfo /fo csv | ConvertFrom-Csv | select OS*, System*, Hotfix* | Format-List
6D.) (Get-WmiObject -class Win32_OperatingSystem).Caption
6E.) [System.Environment]::OSVersion.Version
6F.) [Environment]::OSVersion
6G.) winver
6H.) systeminfo

Make sure to select the index in the ISO image, based on the Edition of Windows you have currently installed:

7.) DISM /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:"C:\Win11_English_x64\sources\install.wim"

Details for image : C:\Win11_English_x64\sources\install.wim

Index : 1
Name : Windows 11 Home
Description : Windows 11 Home
Size : 15,854,479,870 bytes

Index : 4
Name : Windows 11 Education
Description : Windows 11 Education
Size : 16,136,983,252 bytes

Index : 6
Name : Windows 11 Pro
Description : Windows 11 Pro
Size : 16,134,043,048 bytes

Index : 8
Name : Windows 11 Pro Education
Description : Windows 11 Pro Education
Size : 16,136,934,462 bytes

----------**********----------**********----------**********
**********----------**********----------**********----------

If you have Windows 11 Home, the index is set to 1...

If that is the correct Index, then Restore the running operating system image with the ISO you previously extracted:
8.) DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /Source:C:\Win11_English_x64\sources\install.wim:1 /LimitAccess

Cleanup the component store, remove superseded components, finalize patches:
9.) DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase

Scan to replace any obsolete, corrupt, or missing files:
10.) ./SFC /SCANNOW

Reinstall ALL Apps first:
11.) Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"};

Reset All Apps:
12.) Get-AppxPackage | Reset-AppxPackage;

Run this in Powershell to reverse the Start Menu / Taskbar changes:

13.) Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell\Update\Packages" -Name "UndockingDisabled" -Value "00000000"
14.) Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search" -Name "SearchboxTaskbarMode" -Value "00000001";
15.) Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer" -Name "NoTaskGrouping" -Value "00000000";

Restart Explorer to see the taskbar changes:

16.) ./taskkill /f /im explorer.exe;
17.) ./CMD /Q /C START /REALTIME explorer.exe;

18.) Run Windows Update (Settings -> Windows Update)

Remove superseded components, and finalize the image:
19.) DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase

Scan to replace any obsolete, corrupt, or missing files:
20.) ./SFC /SCANNOW

[#8]

@ivan_45th

This can recover a bricked device post-upgrade (Index of 1 means Home Edition) ->

1.) Download Windows 10 ISO Image to "C:\Win11_English_x64.iso"

2.) Install WinRAR: https://www.win-rar.com/download.html?&L=0

3.) Extract ISO Image to "C:\Win11_English_x64"

4.) Start Powershell -> Start Menu -> Run -> taskmgr -> File -> Run new Task -> %SystemRoot%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -> Select "Create this task with administrative privileges." -> Click OK.

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -Scope LocalMachine -Force
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /Source:C:\Win11_English_x64\sources\install.wim:1 /LimitAccess;
DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase;
./SFC /SCANNOW;
Get-AppXPackage -AllUsers | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register
"$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"};
Get-AppxPackage | Reset-AppxPackage;
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell\Update\Packages" -Name "UndockingDisabled" -Value "00000000";
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Search" -Name "SearchboxTaskbarMode" -Value "00000001";
Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKCU:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer" -Name "NoTaskGrouping" -Value "00000000";
./taskkill /f /im explorer.exe;
./CMD /Q /C START /REALTIME explorer.exe;

5.) Run Windows Update (6.) Finalize the patches / updates / verify integrity of the image

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /StartComponentCleanup /ResetBase;
./SFC /SCANNOW;