HP Mediasmart won't open

Hi there. After hours of trying to solve this issue on my own, I've decided to ask for help as I am stuck on a dead end.

I have a TX2-1011au notebook pc. There are multiple ways to launch mediasmart - either by pushing the "M" button on the screen bezel, or by launching mediasmart thru the programs/desktop icon/quicklaunch icon, or by doing that fancy "M" finger gesture on the screen.

None of those works for me.

The mediasmart applications like photos, webcam, etc, work fine, its just that the menu itself (I think it is called Smart Menu? I'm not sure if I fully understood what I have read about it) is not showing up.

I tried installing all the mediasmart software updates thru HP's support and drivers page (including the HP MediaSmart SmartMenu Update), but it still wont work. I tried reinstalling the Smartmenu thru recovery manager, still wont work.

I tried booting with normal startup (all devices/drivers running), and the mediasmart menu showed up (along with the tons of junk processes lol), and the issue seemed to be resolved. I tried disabling some of the stuff from startup again to take load off my notebook, but after the reboot, the mediasmart wont work again, so I loaded the normal startup since it solved the issue before and I am ready to accept the fact that I had to live with the tons of startup programs that is on this computer. However, after loading back the normal startup, the mediasmart wont work still.

Any suggestions other than doing a full system recovery?