Windows 10: Taskbar and Office apps suddenly broken (Jan. 18, 2023)

[German]Brief information for Windows 10 users who are annoyed by an unresponsive taskbar since January 18, 2023. I received a call for help from German blog readers – and we found an explanaition. Anyone using Barco's Clickshare solutions may have been affected by this issue. Here is the information I was able to compile.

A reader report

German blog reader Marius L. emailed me today, January 18, 2023, complaining about massive problems his Windows 10 users are having with the taskbar.

Since this morning [GB: Jan. 18, 2023], we have received more and more messages that the Start menu and other Windows functions in the taskbar can no longer be used.

However, no updates have been installed that could explain this phenomenon. For one user we could solve the problem by deleting the local user profile, but unfortunately this is a quick and dirty solution.

Do you have any other reports on this or could you use your knowledge a bit here, so far I couldn't find anything comparable on the internet?

The environment in question has clients running Windows 10 21H2 with the December 2022 patch level, nothing major that could cause problems. I did immediately think of my German blog post from today, called Killt das Defender Definition Update (1.381.2363.0) Windows bei Verwaltung per Intune, but that turned out to be inaccurate (no Intune or Defender was used, and it seems that the Defender wasn't to blame).

Entry on reddit.com

An anonymous user pointed out a post on reddit.com in a comment, which points out similar problems with the Windows shell.

Windows 10 Searchbar and Start Button does not work

In a Company i Support we get some really strange errors from our clients.

Suddenly after a restart the Search bar and the Windows Start ( Logo) wont work or is not clickable anymore. I cant see any point that triggers this behavior ( Updates or so ) . These Notebooks are Intune controlled. All are rolled out on the same profile.

In the last 6 month we hat like 6 Clients with this problem . If you log in with another account on the same machine everything works fine. The only solution to it by now is to clean reinstall Windows.

Does anyone had/has the same issue or maby knows a fix to this ?

Sounded like the observations I outlined in the German blog post Killt das Defender Definition Update (1.381.2363.0) Windows bei Verwaltung per Intune. But follow-up comments at reddit.com point to the Barco Clickshare adversory mentioned below.

Barco Clickshare is involved

The anonymous blog reader and also in the reddit.com thread pointed out the  support post Unresponsive Windows taskbar or user shell folder permissions issues with ClickShare App Calendar integration by the manufacturer Barco from January 18, 2023. There the problem of unresponsive taskbar and user shell folders in connection with Clickshare has been noticed.

ClickShare is a solution from Barco that automatically connects a notebook to room cameras, speakers and soundbars wirelessly. With just one click, users can wirelessly share a screen or start a video conference. The solution is likely to be in use in some companies.

In an investigation, Barco found that the problem with the Windows taskbar occurs when the user shell registry is changed for any reason (e.g. Windows update, password change, applications using the Microsoft Outlook API or others). It simply comes to a permissions problem – and for me the term clickshare rang a bell. I had already addressed the same issue in the older blog post Windows 10: Barco ClickShare breaks start menu, OneDrive, Outlook and Store apps. Rudy Ooms had investigated this extensively at the time. Yannic laleeuwe has left in July 2022 some comments from the Barco support about this issue. Access permissions broken

Barco has analyzed possible connections with the ClickShare app in more detail and confirmed, according to this article, that ClickShare does not change any Windows Registry values or permissions of the app. The ClickShare app only reads the Microsoft Outlook calendar via the Microsoft Outlook API for the One Click Join feature.

Therefore, the problem with the unresponsive Windows taskbar is not a ClickShare App problem. It is related to Microsoft and can be triggered by any application that uses the Microsoft Outlook API. Also coincides with the feedback I received from Barco on my blog post above.

A repair script from Barco

Barco has given in its support post Unresponsive Windows taskbar or user shell folder permissions issues with ClickShare App Calendar integration some additional hints to deactivate the calendar app. And Barco has published a script to fix the incorrect user rights settings in the registry, so that the shell works again. Just download the ZIP file, unzip it and run the script.

German blog reader Stefan mentioned, that the script fixes indeed some broken things in taskbar. But the taskbar search is still broken afterward. A solution is not know till now.

And German blog reader Tom added, that Barco might have withdrawn the script and currently offers the old version 04_26_00_0012 for download again. He has published some script commands, that shall help.

Confirmation by blog reader

Blog reader Marius, whom I pointed out this solution, then got back to me and confirmed the following:

Yes indeed we have Clickshare in use. We have also distributed the extension pack from Barco to all computers.

I executed the script which was provided by Barco. First it told me during normal execution that this problem does not occur here. Then I ran the script with the -force parameter and then restarted. Et voilà. After that, it worked.

Thanks to the anonymous blog reader and to Marius for the hints – maybe it will help others affected.

Addendum: Ivan Sieder (who first tought it was MS Defender) sent me this night the following addition on Mastodon:

Finally it's scripted. If the local Intune profile is not yet completely broken, this script should do the trick.

And if the local profile is already completely broken, download the repository as zip and execute the install.ps1 with `powershell -executionpolicy bypass -file install.ps1`

Hopefully it's useful for those rare cases out there experiencing the same issue.

Thanks to Ivan for pointing this out. On mastodon there was also the following feedback from another user (thanks for that).

So the script helped. Additionally you should disable the calendar integration via the following registry key:

HKCU\Software\Barco\ClickShare Client

(Attention space!) set the REG_SZ value of CalendarIntegration to "false".

Christian F. from Switzerland sent me the following information by mail (thanks for that).

This problem kept us quite busy during the last 24h. Out of 3000 clients, about 10 (W10 20H2) were affected. Very likely there are more we don't know about yet.

The solution was the PowerShell script on the Barco page at the very end.

Addendum #2: My German readership is discussing the issue heavily in my German blog post. Here are a few other obervations reported – I've translated the text – maybe helpful.

reader #1: In the meantime, we were also able to identify Clickshare as the trigger. For some users, the Clickshare app was installed by executing the exe on the Clickshare buttons. But this was not the case for all users, because since we rolled out the "Clickshare Extension Pack", this was no longer necessary.
The days an update of the app was probably rolled out, which then raised us to version 4.27.0-b8. Thereupon the problems have taken their course.

Most of the time we could solve the problem by running the script and rebooting. Sometimes it was necessary to delete the following file with a new office login:

%localappdata%\packages\Microsoft.AAD.BrokerPlugin_cw5n1h2txyewy

reader #2:

The script from Barco worked on a few computers, but not on all. There the start menu could still not be used, also MS TEAMS did not work anymore. Or also the opening of videos or pictures failed. We then proceeded as follows:

1. uninstalled Clickshare
2. uninstalled Microsoft Update (KB5022282)
3. restart
4. script from Barco executed
5. restart

After that it worked for everyone until now.

reader #3: Some users reported, that the taskbar search is still broken after the Barco script was executed, The reader reported, that for the seach fix the package need to be reinastalled, using the following command:

Add-AppxPackage -Register "C:\Windows\SystemApps\Microsoft.AAD.BrokerPlugin_cw5n1h2txyewy\Appxmanifest.xml" -DisableDevelopmentMode -ForceApplicationShutdown

Some readers reported the issue without having the Barco clickshare app. But also Avaya Workspace App was mentioned in connection with calendar integration. And there was a mention of Kerio Offline client for Outlook using the calendar api.

Addendum #3: According to the article Microsoft investigates bug behind unresponsive Windows Start Menu at Bleeping Computer and Microsoft investigating unclickable Windows Start, Taskbar and Office bugs due to ClickShare at neowin.net, Microsoft investigates, what triggers the broken registry entries.