Thanks

Thanks, MrBrian. That’s incredibly useful “how to” info in that scary moment when one finds oneself in a boot loop or hang.

Something more that those who are now thinking ahead and anticipating problems might want to do, which is particularly helpful if running Windows 10 but gives a little extra control at startup with any Windows OS, is to set the system up to always show the Windows Boot Manager for a few seconds at startup.

You can run the following commands in an elevated CMD prompt in Windows (i.e., before you have problems) to add a few seconds during the first part of bootup that will always give you the option of pressing F8 and getting directly into the Startup Settings menu.

BCDEDIT /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu yes
BCDEDIT /timeout 5

The following screen will thereafter be displayed for a few seconds right after your power on self test. Note especially the message “To specify an advanced option for this choice, press F8.”

Pressing F8 during the above countdown takes you to this screen…

Pressing F10 at the above screen gives you access to this one more important option:

I always set the above “show Windows Boot Manager screen” option on all my Win 7, 8.1, and 10 systems. It adds a few more seconds to your boot time, but gives you the option for control in that one time you might desperately need it.

-Noel

Is DISM an available command on a Win7 Home system?

Many thx to @MrBrian for an illuminating CMD never used that one before. I always sort of did it “old school” You’ll forgive me for not trying it here, as everything’s running fine (Touch-Wood), but its duly noted for future crash’s, not that Windoze ever does 😉

I always thought the “old fashioned” way was what you where referring to when there was a discussion the other week about using DISM in the WINRE\PE environment and that’s the only way I have ever done it, but that assumes you know the number of the errant Package.
At the first screen hit SHIFT-F10 (using Boot\Install Media USB or ISO) brings you to the X: “prompt”
(Done from desktop here for illustration but it works at the X: “prompt”)

<em>To enter those horrendous codes of the package to remove (did you really think I typed all them out? 😉 Top Left in CMD window click the little window, EDIT, then MARK, highlight everything from the : to the end of the “string” Back again to copy, type out the CMD and at the end : right click and paste. )

and that’s it presupposing you know the errant package that’s at fault. Hope this works should bad fortune come a calling down the old update shute.

thx! i just created a system repair disk for windows 7. as you mentioned, out of luck on 8.1 as i don’t have spare usb drive to create usb repair for 8.1 system.

before i copy your post into a proper word document being able to print, i’ll wait a few days if there are more edits of you post. 😀 don’t want to miss anything importand. i need this guide on printable media for that emergency case that windows not booting so it would not be possible to access internet and your page, if second computer (notebook) is not at home…

Any chance of posting the commands needed for PowerShell? Tried that first, and had to go to CMD to get the statements above to work…

Thank you,

Dave \o/

MrBrian wrote:

There are reports that using this method gets out of a no-boot situation after installing the January 2018 Windows updates.

Yes, this is the article that was needed then, back in mid-January. I’m glad you found the time to write it up. Now we have a reference to point to on the next update gaffe. Thanks again.

if System Restore is disabled this won’t work correct ?

@MrBrian, When using the command prompt should the DISM be capitalized or not? I try to stay as far away as possible from anything command prompt related so I have no idea if capitalization matters. Also thank you for the link about the recovery disc, that will definitely come in handy someday.

Took the advice this past meonth and used Macrium to do a full system backup.  Macrium also gave the option to create a recovery disk with Macrium installed on it, and to add the option to boot into the Recovery Environment every time the computer boots up.  
Thankfully, haven’t had to use any of these tools yet, but Macrium seems to make the process easy.

Thanks mrBrian, this is a beautiful description to restore the Windowsmethod
Lately I am getting a bit tired of all these ‘repair-faults’, and I am getting lasy to safe myself lots of time. ((Since Windows 0 or 1 I have lost too many hours to set things right again, Sniff))
I prepair myself for these disasters of BSD dirty-updates etc by making a 100% image of the systemdisk once in a while. I simply restore the whole disk to an earlier point in time, and that works fine for me too ;
Are there any members in this community who have a different experience?
regards Fred

Question to Noel Carboni – Thanks for great post.

My PC dual-boots Win 7 Pro 64-bit and Win 10 Pro 64-bit.  In order to get the little and very useful app iReboot * to work, my displaybootmenu is set to “No”.  (I just confirmed this just by typing bdcedit in cmd.)

Is there a compromise that lets both work?

* iReboot tells a dual-booting PC which OS to boot into on the next reboot.  Using iReboot, I set the selection in advance and then reboot the PC.  It is very useful when I access my PC from outside using Teamviewer and want it to reboot into the other OS.  I recall from more than a year ago that if I let displaybootmenu work, then I cannot select the reboot OS unless I’m sitting at the PC – otherwise (after Noel’s 5 seconds) it will always reboot into the msconfig default selection.  This defeats iReboot.  But it’s been over a year and so possibly I’m misremembering.  If you’re dual-booting, you SHOULD try this at home.  iReboot is made by NeoSmart.

Useful devices include, but are not limited to:

• DVD+RW Rewritable Blank Discs
• Multiple external hard drives
• Multiple flash drives, for short-term or portable work

The shelf life of these devices is limited, so keep them fairly fresh. For example, when the external hard drive sounds like a freight train, it’s wise to retrieve data and replace the drive. These devices are cheap. Personal and proprietary data are not cheap.

Protecting information is paramount.

Maintaining a functional system is paramount.