Windows 10 LTSB 2016 (v. 1607) - Start Menu not showing / not working

[joaorosado]

Hello,

I'm having an issue with App Volumes and it's driving me crazy !

Here's  what I've got :

• VMware Horizon 7.4
• App Volumes Manager 2.13.1 - App Volumes Agent 2.13.2
• A persistant linked-clone test pool (refresh not activated) with Windows 10 LSTB 2016 1607
• For the users profiles, i'm using roaming profiles.
• AppStack with 10 applications

After the pool is provisioned here's the steps and the issue i'm experiencing   :

• 1st login on the VM, the start menu, not fully loaded (due to roaming profiles)

• I do a logoff / login the Start Menu becomes normal and functional, that's great, and the login process is fast.
• I attach the AppStack to the VM, the applications appears and the Start Menu is updated with the new shortcuts without any issue.
• I do a reboot of the VM and login, but now the Start Menu is broken, when I click on it, it's not showing and becomes not functional for production.

The only ways i found to temporarily resolve the issue, is to re-register the AppX but it's not definitive. The issue is back after a reboot.

I've already open an SR, but nothing really helpful for the moment from the support.

I'm wondering if you guys have an idea or a resolution for my issue or somebody having the same problem as me ?

Thank you for your help !

Regards,

Joao Do Carmo Rosado

[techguy129]

Try adding the exclusions to your appstack snapvol.cfg:

exclude_path=\Windows\SystemApps

exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\USER\SOFTWARE\RegisteredApplications

exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppHost

exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\CloudStore\Store\Cache

exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Appx

exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppReadiness

[joaorosado]

Hello,

I just give a try with your solution and i've got the exact same symptoms : /  start menu broke after the reboot or recompose.

For your information, these lines are already by default on the app stack template :

exclude_path=\Windows\SystemApps

exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Appx

exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppReadiness

Theses ones are custom :

exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\USER\SOFTWARE\RegisteredApplications

exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppHost

exclude_registry=\REGISTRY\USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\CloudStore\Store\Cache

Thank you,

Best regards,

Joao Do Carmo Rosado

[techguy129]

In the past, I've created an appstack that re-registered the appx  by using these commands. I put it in clean appstack in the shellstart.bat file. This was fixed after 2.11 however.

Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "C:\Windows\SystemApps\ShellExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\AppxManifest.xml"

Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.Windows.Cortana_cw5n1h2txyewy\AppxManifest.xml"

Recently, a bad update a few months ago broke the start menu for us again but was fixed by Microsoft the next patch cycle.

Currently, we are using LTSB. We don't have any problems with the start menu but we define the start menu layout for our users via UEM via an ADMX. We have the xml on a file share. I know its not the solution you're looking but may help troubleshooting.

[joaorosado]

Thanks for your experience feedback ! Interesting.

I'm trying it in another way, let's forget roaming profiles.

I'm using Windows 10 LTSB 2016 optimized with OSOT Windows 10 template by VMware + Writable Volume and 1 App Stack.

Refresh OS is activated at the Horizon Pool level and means i'm doing a first login each time a user logon.

I'm reaching a 33 sec login time... I don't now if i'm finding that too demanding, but i think it's too slow...

Have you guys better performances ? Or figures that I can compare with my infrastructure ?

Thank you,

Regards,

Joao Do Carmo Rosado

[techguy129]

33 seconds is great for a desktop using app volumes. Myself as well as others login times are about 1min 30sec.

[techguy129]

Also, check out this KB article about your problem:

VMware Knowledge Base

[joaorosado]

Thanks I already try that, not better. The support also point me to that KB.

The "devices.hotplug"=false, i already do that into the gold image to prevent the users to eject the VMXNET3 nic form the vm.

[techguy129]

I just looked at my writable volumes update .zip package.

In the shellstart.bat file I added this line to fix the start menu:

powershell.exe -Command "Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register 'c:\windows\ImmersiveControlPanel\AppXManifest.xml'"