Incompatibility with Windows 10

Start8 is unlikely to be the cause of this problem and there is no need to uninstall it before upgrading to Windows 10.  Even if it wanted to it could not stop the Win10 menu working (it doesn't have any idea it exists).

Unfortunately with a new OS there are problems which are going to come out and the fact you have both Start8 AND the OS menu not working in the same way points to an OS level issue, possibly with file permissions due to the OS upgrading.  There was a recent post here about someone who found none of their start menu shortcuts can be launched (from Start8 or from explorer) because the OS upgrader messed up the permissions on the folders and the user does not have permission to read them!

If Start8 were somehow to be the problem you should find uninstalling it would fix it as nothing it does would continue past a reboot.

One thing I ought to mention is if you have ModernMix installed you should uninstall that as that is certainly not compatible with Windows 10.

I can now unequivocally say that Start8 was the sole cause of my issue. I reverted back to my Windows 8 system from a Parallels Desktop snapshot, and this time tried uninstalling Start8 before installing Windows 10. Start8 was exhibiting very strange behavior that I would liken to adware or spyware. Every time I would terminate the service and associated process to end the task, it would restart. Every time I would uninstall the program through the Control Panel, it would reappear upon restart. I initially thought that Neil could potentially be correct. But I isolated Start8 from all other variables and have definitely shown that it was the cause. My Start Menu works great in Windows 10 after the reinstallation. Once again, everyone make sure you uninstall Start8 before you upgrade. Neil, you need to figure out what caused this to happen and push out an update because it was quite a displeasing bug.

why didnt you update once on windows 10.you get start 10.thats most likely your issue

As I have explained on these forums as it came up earlier this week, Parallels VM will automatically reinstall Start8 and ModernMix under a parallels VM.  This is their side not us.

Parallels licensed Start8 and ModernMix from Stardock and there is a setting in their UI which when set will cause it to automatically install and keep enabled both of those which is why you had such problems with uninstalling and disabling it.  You would need to contact Parallels support for them to rectify that as it is outside our control (Their VM software does it even if you have Stardock licensed copies)

If anything were to cause you a problem I would imagine it would have been ModernMix as that is not compatible with Windows 10 and Parallels will have been force installing that one too.

I did try installing and upgrading to Start10, but I wanted the stock Windows 10 Start menu and not the Start10 one so that didn't help anything. Thank you for clarifying that, Neil. It had been so long since I had installed Start8 that I didn't recall its association with Parallels. I'm just posting this for people who have the same issue as I did. 

start 10 should give you a choice to change the orb or leave it to default.im sure that option exists.

The following link explains how to stop Start8 from automatically installing in a Parallels VM.

http://kb.parallels.com/en/116716

Start10 does allow you to pick your own start button image and this includes the option to keep using the OS default one.

I have recently updated my Windows 8.1 with Start8 installed to Windows 10.

All appeared OK but I wanted to try the new Windows 10 Start menu so I uninstalled Start8.

I now have the Windows 10 Start menu and it is mostly working as expected. However when right-clicking the Start button the usual context menu appears but left clicking any of its options does nothing.

I have read the comments about Start8 not being the likely culprit here but I am at a loss on how to restore the right-click menu to be working correctly.

Any ideas please?

I had the same problem, and Start8 clearly conflicts with the W10 Startup. I at least wanted to see the new start menu b4 making judgement on it. I also noted that the task bar did not populate properly. So...I went to Services and switched Start8 to manual and stopped it. Rebooted and everything in W10 worked as it was supposed to. I chose this option as opposed to uninstalling just in case I want to go back to Win8.1. Since the Start menu is so intrinsic to the system, it's no surprise that Start8 conflicts a bit. W10's start menu is not as wanting as W8's. You can right-click on it also for add'l options. I trust Stardock, and when their Start10 does ship, I am sure it will work, but its not quite as necessary in Win10, altho still more w7-esque as far as I've seen.

I also upgraded to Windows 10, however, Start8 continued to work perfectly.  My problem is that when Start8 tries to upgrade to a newer version of Start8, it always fails with this error message: "The following minimum system requirement for this setup were not met: Operating System: Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, Windows 8.1, Windows Server 2012 R2    The setup will now abort."

Not sure what to do about this as I can no longer intall updates to Start8.

This is a known bug in the update.  I understand we will be updating that next week to rectify it.  You can set it to Win8 compatibility mode to bypass that message for now.  It should be noted there are known issues with Start8 on Windows 10 such as the search bar overlapping the taskbar icons, wrong OS colour matching, the icons for Universal apps appearing incorrectly and additional apps listed which are not for users to ever launch along with some other problems, but it was not our aim to intentionally block the use of Start8 on Windows 10.

We have released Start10 this week which has some enhancements other than fixes over and above Start8 and I recommend looking at the start10 website in case any of these appeal though.  See www.start10.com  The taskbar features are especially nice along with the new style, new start button recolouring to match the taskbar, option to use cortana search over Start10 search, tile view mode etc.

I'll gladly switch to Start10.  Do I need to uninstall Start8 first, or will it be overwritten by Start10?

Uninstall first.  Reboot and then install Start10

I had Start 8 running with Windows 8.1. Upgraded to Win 10 and Start 8 ran just fine. I would like to try the Win 10 start menu.

I successfully uninstalled Start 8. Problem: the Win 10 start menu doesn't work.

Unfortunately this will be a problem with your Windows 10 install.  The Windows 10 OS is a little fragile when it comes to the start menu and it can fail to work during at all especially after an upgrade install.  You would not have noticed because you were not using it and were instead using Start8 (which BTW now has additional issues on Windows 10 after the November update for Windows 10).  Start10 on the other hand works fine.

Is there a free updrade to Start 8 to 10? I own a license for 8.

Free no, but there is probably a discount.

https://www.stardock.com/products/start10/download.asp

Scroll to the bottom and see the Own Start8 bit?  Click the link and enter your email address you used to buy Start8.