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Excellent article.  Jim’s Toolbox sounds like it would be really useful in my volunteer activities of helping senior citizens with their computer problems.  One question:  Can it be run from a flash drive without installing it on the hard drive?

I think 24H2 shuts down the option.  Probably best to use shift-F10 to bring up command prompt.  Then type the following at the prompt:

oobe\bypassnro

Then let the system reboot and proceed with the setup.  Select “I don’t have an Internet connection” when that option appears, which it will now do.

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Kathy Stevens, Lars220, rc primak, opti1, fisher75

I like and respect oldergeeks.com, but I had the same experience today with the bad download of Hiren’s BootCD.  Rufus noted the discrepancies and would not create the bootable flash drive.  Tried it twice, using two separate downloads.  OlderGeeks should never allow this to happen.  They should either make the necessary corrections in their link to the download or delete the software from their site.  Disappointing.

Many thanks. That solves it for me.

Many thanks. That solves it for me.

Tried out the new Windows Backup on an old Windows 10 laptop to see if it could migrate my system to another laptop. It failed to backup the Folders. Rebooted and tried it several times: same result.

Excellent article. Didn’t know the Photos app had those capabilities. Question: can it link to the Google Photos site (photos.google.com)?

You might try Symphytum. It is available for both Windows and Linux. Simple to use: GUI, and you can import from spreadsheet or set up database manually. Still needs more development to add functionality, but it is very usable.

Actually, it is Microsoft’s answer to Chrome OS, as used in the Chromebook.  YouTube video’s show it is being very similar, although more limited in functionality.  Microsoft originally planned it for fold-able devices, but has changed course and will now initially release it for laptops and desktops.

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doriel, Microfix

Al,

Not sure why that is happening. I did a Google search using the following search term: “Windows 10: The boot configuration data store could not be opened.”
At least one of the results suggests that you are on the right track in suspecting that it is a UEFI issue. It suggests changing to a “Legacy” boot mode to resolve the problem. Might be worth a try.

Al,

See if this works, although it will disable your F8 capability:

Go to the command prompt with administrative privileges;

At the prompt, enter the following statement:
BCDEDIT /SET {DEFAULT} BOOTMENUPOLICY STANDARD

Depending upon the computer, the BIOS options may only appear when booting from a complete shutdown, not during a re-start.

Hope this helps.

If you use the BCDEdit codes, it has not simplified the access to Safe Mode, which I viewed as the purpose of the BootSafe utility.  What is needed is to access Safe Mode from a computer that will not complete the full boot into Windows.  The triple restart process is one option, but doesn’t always work on all computers.

In search box in lower left corner of taskbar, type “netplwiz” (without the quotes).  Uncheck the box “Require password for this account.”  Click Apply.  Enter your password to confirm that you are really the owner of the account.  And your done.  You actually still have a password, but you are now able to bypass it when booting the computer.

Fed,

Which TPLink product did you use?   Which version?

 

Try booting from a flash drive with Linux on it (i.e., a “live” flash drive).  If the problem still occurs with Linux, you’ll know that it is a hardware problem, rather than a Windows problem.  If the problem does not occur with Linux, I would do two things in Windows:  run chkdsk c: /f, to clear up any corrupted file system entries.  Secondly, uninstall Bit Defender, at least temporarily, to see if that resolves the problem.  I’ve seen several problems resulting from misbehaving Bit Defender.  Don’t know if Bit Defender was really the culprit or whether it was just a coincidence.