Windows 10 Show All Apps View /w full screen Start after 1703 update

[hrast128]

Hello all!

I just freshly installed the 1703 Creators Update. I would like to use Start in full screen, where the All Apps View is shown first (not the default pinned Start tiles view). I know this was possible to set up in 8.1 and in 10 RTM, but now with the gradual "metroization" of settings I can't really find this setting.

Is it truly gone? Would any of you know of a fix, possibly some registry hack, that would allow me to display All Apps first? I don't really like or use Start tiles.

What I am trying to achieve is described in this tutorial: Show The All Apps View When Start Button Is Clicked In Windows 10

... which is valid for 10 RTM and possibly later updates, but not 1703 as Taskbar properties were at some point in time moved into the Settings app.

Thanks for any help!

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Hi,
it works on my desktop with v1703 b15063.138. You might have a virus/malware; have you used your AV to scan for viruses? If that doesn't fix it, you might have failed hard drive as 8.1 systems are now 4 years old this year; and modern hard drives are only designed to last 3 years in desktop PCs and only 2 years in laptops!

You can test your Hard Drive here using my free TROUBLESHOOTING GUIDE available here: Windows 10 - Unclickable Task Bar

If your hard drive passes all tests, as well as your RAM sticks, you can then do a W10 repair/reset and see if you can fix it. If that doesn't do it you may have to perform a W10 Clean Install using factory Recovery Media or the free Microsoft MCT tool here: Download Windows 10

That should fix it.

Best of luck,
<<<<BIGBEARJEDI>>>>

 

[hrast128]

Hello,

thanks for your advice. I am confident that is not the case, as even though my laptop is a few years old now, a year ago I replaced my hard drive with an SSD. Furthermore, before installing Windows yesterday, I securely erased the drive with a linux live CD, effectively wiping the drive with zeroes, and also after installing Windows I enabled the "slow-mode" BitLocker, which as I'm sure you know writes data to each and every sector on the partition, which would flag out any faulty ones -- S.M.A.R.T. shows 0 bad sectors.

I'm a little perplexed with you mentioning Windows 8.1 and I think I've been misunderstood. I freshly installed Windows 10 Pro x64 v1703 on a cleanly wiped SSD, not upgraded a previous version. I mentioned 8.1 and 10RTM only because I remember that this option, "Show Apps view automatically when I go to Start" existed in those versions and now seems gone from the "metroized" Personalization/Start settings.

Possibly you upgraded from a previous version where setting this option was possible and your setting persists despite the upgrades, even though it's not possible to set it in Settings anymore?

Thanks anyway!

 

[Neemobeer]

I don't believe it is possible to have it open directly to the 'All Apps' menu. I did a fair amount of trying to coax the registry for settings with procmon and none stood out. If there is a setting it will most likely be for SearchUI.exe, taskhostw.exe or sihost.exe

 

[hrast128]

Okay, I did the same, monitored SystemSettings.exe with procmon and figured out that the setting is stored in

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\CloudStore\Store\Cache\DefaultAccount\$$windows.data.unifiedtile.startglobalproperties\Current

After googling for "$$windows.data.unifiedtile.startglobalproperties" I also found this thread which seems to confirm my suspicions Hide or Show App List in Start Menu in Windows 10

The problem is, it's a binary data value and I have no clue how to decode and modify it. Windows settings apparently went from obfuscation (the registry maze) to super-obfuscation!

For the record, my entry looks like:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\CloudStore\Store\Cache\DefaultAccount\$$windows.data.unifiedtile.startglobalproperties\Current]
"Data"=hex:02,00,00,00,8c,c7,c3,63,f6,b9,d2,01,00,00,00,00,43,42,01,00,02,01,\
  c2,1e,00,cb,32,0a,02,05,86,91,cc,93,05,24,aa,a3,01,44,c3,84,01,66,9f,f7,9d,\
  b1,87,cb,d1,ac,d4,01,00,05,bc,c9,a8,a4,01,24,8c,ac,03,44,89,85,01,66,a0,81,\
  ba,cb,bd,d7,a8,a4,82,01,00,c2,3c,01,00

 

[Neemobeer]

Are you using a MS account and the MS Store ?

 

[hrast128]

Nope, I detest the new stuff, so I only have a local account and I removed all metro apps in PowerShell with Get-AppxPackage | Remove-AppxPackage, which also got rid of the store.

I closed all running processes I could, left open only SystemSettings.exe, then fired up procmon and toggled the Use Start full screen switch a couple times in Settings (Personalization/Start). After filtering out other processes' procmon entries this registry value was the only meaningful one that SystemSettings.exe seems to write to when changing Start menu settings.

 

[Neemobeer]

Just curious be I don't have that setting all nor do I see any attempt to access it when I run procmon and access the start menu, so I don't think that is the right setting.

 

[hrast128]

I did not find it by accessing the Start menu, I found it by changing the settings related to the Start in the Settings app (SystemSettings.exe). You can reproduce my investigation:
1. Open System Settings (e. g. the "new" Metro settings), go to Personalization/Start
2. Start procmon.exe and add a filter to only show entries related to SystemSettings.exe
3. Go back to the Settings window and toggle various settings related to Start, then close Settings
4. Analyse in procmon to which registry entries SystemSettings.exe wrote when you were toggling switches and you'll end up with the aforementioned $$windows.data.unifiedtile.startglobalproperties

 

[Neemobeer]

May be something new to 1703 I'm not on 1703 on this device.

 

[hrast128]

Possibly. Also, I took a look into the Local Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc), where you can often find useful settings that have been removed from Windows or are deemed too complex for the mainstream user.

Guess what, under User Configuration/Administrative templates/Start Menu and Taskbar you can find Show the Apps view automatically when the user goes to Start, with the following description:

This policy setting allows the Apps view to be opened by default when the user goes to Start.

If you enable this policy setting, the Apps view will appear whenever the user goes to Start. Users will still be able to switch between the Apps view and the Start screen.

If you disable or don’t configure this policy setting, the Start screen will appear by default whenever the user goes to Start, and the user will be able to switch between the Apps view and the Start screen. Also, the user will be able to configure this setting.

Which even if set to enabled doesn't change full screen Start behavior.

I guess this one is a lost cause. But boy I don't like the direction of the latest Windows updates. :-(

Considering switching to LTSB since I only use Windows for Adobe Creative Suite and some other applications that won't emulate properly under Wine.

 

[Neemobeer]

Right, because that setting only applies to 8,8.1 and server 2008. LTSB is only available if you have a volume license agreement.

 

[BIGBEARJEDI]

Good information, and it appears this might be yet another glitch in the v1703 CU. Thanks very much by the way for bringing our attention to this, even if we cannot solve it for you at this time. I was not really aware of these new settings, as I have a heavy project load of presentations and workshops I'm working on over the next 6 months so I didn't really look at many issues like this in the Tech Preview edition prior to the CU release. I've been quite busy trying to solve issues on the RTM versions that have come out since Nov. 2016, and there are a bunch. Some of the other W10 Insider Testers here may yet have some further insight for you on this.

Just a thought for you, have you cross-posted this issue on the W10 Insider Hub at Microsoft Community Forum? Many Microsoft developers who are also Microsoft employees spend time on that forum searching for answers for this kind of question. I'm not sure if you are a W10 Insider or not, but if you are I would urge you post this question in that forum. Many of us W10 Insiders go there and post a question on a new release that no one else here has gotten to yet, due to the newness of the issue. Sometimes, you will get an answer back, and can share with the rest of us here; sometimes, not. Trying to think of some other avenues for you to get this looked into or even solved.

Finally, you might be better off switching to Linux Ubuntu, or Mint, or one of the other flavors if you are ready to abandon Windows. There is quite a movement of power users to either switch completely (apps you use permitting as you mentioned), or augment on different computers as I do. I might add, that Linux continues to get better and better and the problems I've had adding peripherals such as printers to Linux for the last 10 years appears to have been solved; at least in Mint. Still working on it in Ubuntu.

Hope that proves helpful. And best of luck to you,
<<<<BBJ>>>>

 

[hrast128]

Thank you both for your time. I don't think this is a bug, but a deliberate feature removal, still I understand M$ as I guess not many people use Start full screen since the 8 fiasco.

For the time being I will leave things as they are, as I don't have time to mess with tweaking Windows further. I already used up a whole afternoon wiping the SSD clean and reinstalling Archlinux and Windows 10 from scratch! I have this habit from 98/XP days when I would reinstall the OS every year or so for that clean, fresh experience, but I guess nowadays it's not so necessary anymore as operating systems and hardware have evolved (systems clutter up less, built-in antivirus, self-cleaning and optimising mechanisms, no more fragmentation on SSD etc).

Funny that you mention Linux, I already use Arch with Gnome 3 and am very happy with it as my main desktop experience. I only have Windows for M$ Office (just as backup to LibreOffice), Adobe apps and the occasional GOG game. Actually this thread sprang from an attempt to make Windows behave more like Gnome -- small taskbar on top, full screen Start with Apps view default.

Thanks again and best of luck to you too!

EDIT: Might be a bit off topic, but since you mentioned Mint and Ubuntu ... might I recommend Arch as a desktop (not for production usage, better off with the stability of Debian or Ubuntu LTS for that!) because of its one great advantage (in my opinion). Sure, it doesn't have an automatic installer and takes a while (and some reading, though its wiki is just awesome) to setup properly, but all packages are mint. For example, Firefox on Ubuntu and Mint comes with a custom start page and search engines that provide money to developers, desktop enviroments and applications come with distribution branding -- but on Arch applications are built and shipped exactly as their upstream developers intended, without any hidden tweaks (nonwithstanding necessary patches to even make them work), which paradoxically makes it the most "mint" distribution.