Skyhooker
Member
- Reaction score
- 9
- Location
- Dundee, Illinois
Hi, everyone,
I'm helping some folks with Win8.1 on a laptop that had some problems (taskbar frozen and unusable, and no fix I had tried so far was able to correct it). I was going to do some testing in safe mode, and used a tech tool to flag it to boot into safe mode with networking on the next restart, rather than going through the F-key hassle. I only then found out that safe mode login requires the full MS account password, and there's no provision for entering their PIN to log into safe mode. Worse yet, I can't get out of the safeboot loop, seemingly (the login screen gives no indication what mode it's logging into), and get back to a normal session login.
I called them and asked for the full login password, and they were unable to provide it. The husband is in early stages of Alzheimer's, and they set up the PIN to make it easier to log in. None of their guesses worked.
Next, I helped them change the PW through the MS login "forgot password" page. No problem there. The problem now is that I cannot get an internet connection at the Windows login screen to log into the new MS account. A wired connection is not recognized, and while all of the local wifi connections show up, I cannot log into my own wifi, no matter what changes I make to it. I even set it to Unsecured, and I'll get "the internet connection is taking a long time" followed by "can't connect now, try later." It's maddening.
I was going to do an offline file backup, followed by a factory reset, but I cannot do that without a successful login, either.
Does anyone know how to either connect this thing to the net, or modify whatever flags set it to Safeboot, so I can get out of this Safeboot loop, and back to a full Windows session login, where I might be able to use the PIN again? If it were Win7 or earlier, I'd simply modify the boot.ini to remove the safeboot flag, but there is no such file in Win8.1.
I'd appreciate any suggestions - thanks!
I'm helping some folks with Win8.1 on a laptop that had some problems (taskbar frozen and unusable, and no fix I had tried so far was able to correct it). I was going to do some testing in safe mode, and used a tech tool to flag it to boot into safe mode with networking on the next restart, rather than going through the F-key hassle. I only then found out that safe mode login requires the full MS account password, and there's no provision for entering their PIN to log into safe mode. Worse yet, I can't get out of the safeboot loop, seemingly (the login screen gives no indication what mode it's logging into), and get back to a normal session login.
I called them and asked for the full login password, and they were unable to provide it. The husband is in early stages of Alzheimer's, and they set up the PIN to make it easier to log in. None of their guesses worked.
Next, I helped them change the PW through the MS login "forgot password" page. No problem there. The problem now is that I cannot get an internet connection at the Windows login screen to log into the new MS account. A wired connection is not recognized, and while all of the local wifi connections show up, I cannot log into my own wifi, no matter what changes I make to it. I even set it to Unsecured, and I'll get "the internet connection is taking a long time" followed by "can't connect now, try later." It's maddening.
I was going to do an offline file backup, followed by a factory reset, but I cannot do that without a successful login, either.
Does anyone know how to either connect this thing to the net, or modify whatever flags set it to Safeboot, so I can get out of this Safeboot loop, and back to a full Windows session login, where I might be able to use the PIN again? If it were Win7 or earlier, I'd simply modify the boot.ini to remove the safeboot flag, but there is no such file in Win8.1.
I'd appreciate any suggestions - thanks!
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