Significant Start Menu/Tasbar Delay

[n0ads71]

Describe the bug

Windows 10 22H2 using Open-Shell 4.4.191

After installing October's culmative update KB5044273 I'm experiencing a significant delay (3-4 secs) whenever I try to activate the Start Menu/Taskbar using the Mouse, the WinKey or Ctrl+Esc. Disabling Open-Shell removes the delay.

Tried completely unistalling Open-Shell, including all user settings, and reinstalled it with default settings and the delay returns.

Tried a clean install of Windows 10, updated it to KB5044273 (no delay), then reinstalled Open-Shell and the delay returned.

Note: this only happens on my Asus ROG Maximus Gene XI motherboard. My two other PC's, a Dell D830 and HP 6910P laptop also running Windows 10 22H2 and using Open-Shell 4.4.191, do not experience the delay.

Area of issue

Start menu, Taskbar

To reproduce

Attempt to open Start Menu/Taskbar.

Expected behavior

Normal behavior is an almost immedate response when activating the Start Menu/Taskbar.

Open-Shell version

4.4.191

Windows version

Windows 10 22H2

Additional context

Seems to be manufacturer/motherboard specific as two other individuals have also seen this problem, one on an Asus PRIME Z790-V AX motherbaord and the other on a Dell Optiplex 790 and Acer 5742 laptop.

See the following thread on the AskWoody site https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/october-updates-are-out/#post-2712711

[n0ads71]

Discovered the problem is due to interaction with the new version of SearchApp.exe.

If the older version of SearchApp.exe was killed/disabled so it didn't even load, there were no Start Menu/Taskbar delays using Open-Shell.

The new version must be loaded, even if it's suspended, or there's a significant Start Menu/Taskbar delay when using Open-Shell

To reproduce, simply kill the SearchApp.exe process and prevent it from restarting.

[KKMEFM]

Confirmed. I found the same thing. Disabling the search box in the start menu didn't solve the problem.

This may be a larger problem than just Open Shell. See this thread.
https://www.tenforums.com/general-support/215831-how-disable-searchapp-exe.html

[megamurmulis]

Same here in VM - opening StarMenu starts SearchApp.exe (or tries to)..

Temporary solution: replacing SearchApp.exe in "Microsoft.Windows.Search_cw5n1h2txyewy" with systray.exe (just leave exe and *.xml) brings the delay down considerably, but not completely gone (around 0.5-1s) = almost livable..

[Ghost-Miner]

I also came across this extremely annoying issue. classic (open) shell used to be one of the most stable and compatible customization tools/programs on windows. I wonder why it even has this bug.

But I run Windows 10 22H2