FDE = Undecryptable Drives

[Sky-Knight]

You don't believe the options reported in the other thread?

The oobe\bypassnro script and the registry setting it changes are included in the OS by Microsoft for a reason. They are widely publicised on the net and still haven't been removed so we can assume Microsoft wants the option there for IT departments and techs.

I don't because I've had 4 Win11 units roll through my hands in the last week and not a single one of them had that process work.

 

[fincoder]

Maybe the most recent factory images have the bypassnro script removed now?

 

[Sky-Knight]

Maybe the most recent factory images have the bypassnro script removed now?

Who knows... All I know is a brand new Dell Optiplex, Dell Latitude, Microsoft Surface Pro 9, and an HP laptop (don't recall the model because HP is stupid), all Win11 home, none would allow bypassnro to work. All simply reported a command not found error when that command was attempted at the specific time, and at other times during the OOBE wizard.

This experience reinforces other setups I've done earlier this year on other equipment.

I've NEVER ONCE seen the supposed bypass work. I didn't think to try the false email approach... next one that comes in gets a@a.com for the account and a gibberish password to see if that works.

And all of this from someone who actually WANTS the endpoints encrypted. Because yes, ID theft is that bad, and yes theft of personal devices to get at personal assets as a threat vector is on the rise.

 

[nlinecomputers]

The script lives in c:\windows\system32\oobe\bypassnro.cmd

You could recreate it and put it on a flash drive

@echo off
reg add HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\OOBE /v BypassNRO /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
shutdown /r /t 0

 

[nlinecomputers]

And from what I've seen you have to put the full path in at the command prompt.

 

[fincoder]

And from what I've seen you have to put the full path in at the command prompt.

The command prompt defaults to c:\windows\system32, that's why you only need to enter part of the path: oobe\bypassnro