Can not get F8 key to react on startup.

[Ken1943]

If I never attempted for a second time any of the things that I screwed up
once, life would be dull, indeed. ;-)

No, we would never learn. Blew up a few telephone systems in 47 years.
LOL


KenW

 

[KCB]

1. You have to press F8 after the BIOS splash screen but *before*
anything from Windows appears.

2. Pressing and holding it has *never* worked for me. What I do is start
pressing it repeatedly, timed as above.

+1
tap tap tap

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

+1
tap tap tap

For some reason, "tap tap tap" got me to laugh. Thanks

It expresses the idea very nicely...

 

[slate_leeper]

For some reason, "tap tap tap" got me to laugh. Thanks

It expresses the idea very nicely...

Thanks for the further suggestions, folks. I tried F5, the space bar,
and F6. None worked. I also tried my own suggestions of a deliberate
system crash (full image backup first, of course). This brought me
into the safe mode screen on reboot, but still wouldn't get me to
"Last Known Good Configuration."

Linux next time?

-dan z-




--
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Let the politicians know how you feel.
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Gun control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Thanks for the further suggestions, folks. I tried F5, the space bar,
and F6. None worked. I also tried my own suggestions of a deliberate
system crash (full image backup first, of course). This brought me
into the safe mode screen on reboot, but still wouldn't get me to
"Last Known Good Configuration."

Linux next time?

-dan z-

As Windows evolves, ideas like your last question creep into my mind
also

 

[charlie]

As Windows evolves, ideas like your last question creep into my mind
also

Linux is useful, but not so great for the masses.

Anyway, the F8 bit used to give me fits as well, with timing of the key
press(s) critical. As the processors evolved faster and faster, the key
press timing became more critical.

The UEFI BIOS on newer MBDs have options that can easily impact F8
functionality. The options allow such things as no, partial, full, or
delayed BIOS support for key presses during boot, and during the
"handoff" to windows.Then there is the windows keyboard driver, be it
Microsoft's or the keyboard OEM's.

One of the things that might happen is that the buffers get cleared, and
windows never "sees" the keypress data. Another one, having nothing
directly to do with BIOS, is that malware can be active early enough in
the process that the F8 key press is ignored.

I did see, a decade or so ago, LAN related software that actually
monitored key press's at boot
to determine if a user was present. The scheme was related to LAN based
P/C start-ups for inventory and updates. The ability to lockout the
user's keyboard input was inherent, just as keyboard input indicated
that the user was present.

This was installed at a government location. At the time, there was sort
of a "fight" going on who had the authority to do what, and the
prerogatives of a commissioned officer "commander" of a unit vs. the
unit assigned to control the LAN/WLAN.

We were told to "lockout" much of the WLAN administrator's capability in
this area, in order to maintain/retain local control of privacy,
configuration, and so forth.

As always, things eventually changed, with central control of the P/Cs
winning the battle. At least this allowed the "budget" to properly fund
IT operations, instead of running it as a poor relation/stepchild.

Security competency was initially a large issue. Some of the user
"tenants" had higher security requirements than the central IT people
were prepared to support, and so forth. It was so bad at one point that
data was transferred via encrypted floppy disks, on a one for one trade.
(The IT people did not have the keys or equipment to decrypt.) The
replacement floppy was untrusted, so it had to be erased externally from
a P/C, then checked, overwritten, and reformatted before it could be
reused.

I was overjoyed to change to another "environment", and eventually
retire from such goings on.

 

[charlie]

Linux is useful, but not so great for the masses.

Anyway, the F8 bit used to give me fits as well, with timing of the key
press(s) critical. As the processors evolved faster and faster, the key
press timing became more critical.

The UEFI BIOS on newer MBDs have options that can easily impact F8
functionality. The options allow such things as no, partial, full, or
delayed BIOS support for key presses during boot, and during the
"handoff" to windows.Then there is the windows keyboard driver, be it
Microsoft's or the keyboard OEM's.

One of the things that might happen is that the buffers get cleared, and
windows never "sees" the keypress data. Another one, having nothing
directly to do with BIOS, is that malware can be active early enough in
the process that the F8 key press is ignored.

I did see, a decade or so ago, LAN related software that actually
monitored key press's at boot
to determine if a user was present. The scheme was related to LAN based
P/C start-ups for inventory and updates. The ability to lockout the
user's keyboard input was inherent, just as keyboard input indicated
that the user was present.

This was installed at a government location. At the time, there was sort
of a "fight" going on who had the authority to do what, and the
prerogatives of a commissioned officer "commander" of a unit vs. the
unit assigned to control the LAN/WLAN.

We were told to "lockout" much of the WLAN administrator's capability in
this area, in order to maintain/retain local control of privacy,
configuration, and so forth.

As always, things eventually changed, with central control of the P/Cs
winning the battle. At least this allowed the "budget" to properly fund
IT operations, instead of running it as a poor relation/stepchild.

Security competency was initially a large issue. Some of the user
"tenants" had higher security requirements than the central IT people
were prepared to support, and so forth. It was so bad at one point that
data was transferred via encrypted floppy disks, on a one for one trade.
(The IT people did not have the keys or equipment to decrypt.) The
replacement floppy was untrusted, so it had to be erased externally from
a P/C, then checked, overwritten, and reformatted before it could be
reused.

I was overjoyed to change to another "environment", and eventually
retire from such goings on.

I forgot to add that win 8 has a time "window" of about 250ms to hit the
F8 Key.