corrupting user

[bic 44]

Just about every year something weird happens to my Windows 10 user id.  This years sympton is I cannot click on the STart Menu.  Oddly, I can press the windows key to fire it up.  I tried replacing the battery on my mouse, but I use the mouse with a laptop, so that wasn't it.  Also, I could not start Explorer via the mouse.  I could start task man and run cmd.exe from there.

Anyhow, I tried to restore back, but that didn't seem to help (there only seemed to be two restore points).  I ended up having to run a Win refresh and lost all my installed apps and settings.  So, I'm in the process of reinstalling my apps.  

Is there a way to backup my user profile with all it's settings, especially c:\programdata?

[bic 44]

Tuned out to be a virus.  Defender didn't pick it obviously, but I ran a Defender scan and it found it.  Malware Bytes and SpyBot found some stuff, but not the smoking gun.

Win 10 can back up your profile, when I tried it, my profile was 100 gigs...

[bobbyjack 61]

If I remember, most AV suggests that you run a scan now and then. Good luck.