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Upgraded to windows 8.1... Now locked out of PC.

WeeWillie

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,556
Location
UK
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Insulin
Dislikes
Dictators who positively go out of their way to force misery, tears and fears, upon their countryman's lives.
Politicians who, in dealing with dictators, have a wishbone where a backbone should be.
HI,

I've just upgraded to Widows 8.1 from Windows 8. Took ages to download and install, but eventually the PC rebooted. That's when I discovered (some of you may know what's coming) I cannot get past the "Confirm Your Local Account Password" window because I hadn't signed up to "Microsoft's Live Account" when I upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 8.
There was no prior warning whatsoever advising of problems that would occur if you did not register with their "Live Account", but neither do they prevent you from not signing up.

A Google search offers a work-around for this problem but, ONLY if you can get into your desktop, which I can't due to me not having a Local Account Password".

Depending on the web sites you view for advice, there appears to be a consensus of opinion that the only answer is to reformat the HDD and re-install the original OS.

If that is correct then I've lost everything including all my files and folders relating to Diabetes UK.

So bottom line, can anyone come up with a solution to help me with this problem, Paaaaleeeze.

You know, I can hardly believe Microsoft did not make/warn everyone that you MUST sign up with their "Live Account" in order to upgrade to Windows 8.1, yet as I mentioned neither do they prevent you from not signing up to the thing....and there's a lot of people fallen victim to this.

Microsoft are so brainy they're brainless, honestly.

So, if anyone can offer any advice/help, I'd be so relieved.

Thank you in advance.

willie.
 
Hi Willie,

I had exactly the same problem just before Christmas, when my PC rebooted I could log on but it kept throwing up new windows, as fast as I closed them. I took it back to PC world, and without telling the technician he asked " Have you updated to Windows 8.1 ?" I had to have it factory rebuilt. I lost all of my files ( not many) I had to re-install my software also. I was not impressed with Microsoft either. Good luck hope you get it sorted out soon.
 
If you bought the computer with Windows 8 pre-loaded, you should be able to contact the manufacturer and have them tell you the default password for the particular PC/Laptop model you're using. It might even be in the manual, since usually a local account password is required to enter safe mode and such.

Two options you could try:

1) Your Live password
2) An empty password field (literally just press enter without typing anything in, this has worked for me in the past)
 
Sorry you are having big problems, Willie, I hope you can sort it out without losing everything. So glad I got rid of W8...
 
Hi Bernie Freeman.
Well I guess PC world are confirming what I discovered in the Google search...many people have been caught out by Microsoft's lack of warning/information regarding up-grading to Windows 8.1.
btw, 8.1 was a free upgrade from the PC manufacturer.

I still can hardly believe Microsoft's indifference to the difficulty their customers are faced with they (MS) themselves created for what should be a straight forward action.
Mind you, it could be a cynical ploy to force 8.1 users to sign up to their "Live Account"

Thank you for the good luck wishes.

willie.

____________________________________________


izzzi, please give a grateful thank you to your son from me for the link, I've downloaded the App, virus checked it and it was fine.
I couldn't use it on this occasion, but I'm going to keep it for sure.

____________________________________________

Thank you for replying Giverny, I never thought of repeatedly hitting the enter key, it worked for me with couple of other issues in the past, sadly not this time though.

The Live Password... I don't have one, I didn't sign up to M\soft, by choice. (don't trust 'em)

willie.

____________________________________________


Beshlie, thank you for your kind thoughts, and I know what you mean regarding windows 8, the maddening thing is I'm getting kind of used to Win 8 now.

But Windows 8.1 upgrade!!! Get your act together Microsoft, for goodness sake.

willie.

____________________________________________


Backing up Robbity ...that should be printed on a clearly visible sign in front of us every time we boot-up our PC's.

Good advice.

Thank you.

willie

____________________________________________

Aaah, paul-1976, thank you for that....see below.

willie.


____________________________________________


You know, I'm sooo tired at times that my mind can be all foggy, in fact I should have used that for my moniker, and this farce was one of those times.

Anyway, I tried a lot of things without success, including an attempt to get into Safe-Mode....ziltz.
Finally, I hit the "f5" key, immediately I could hear some rumbling followed by a pop-up panel informing me the PC could not boot into 8.1 Therefore the PC will attempt to boot into Windows 8.

So that's me up and running without a single loss of file or folder.
I've no answer to that but, Aaaaamen.

Though I would hate anyone to go through this stupid carry-on, perhaps that info, including all of yours, may be of help to someone in the future.


Thank you all again, your keenness to offer help in all boards, I find an admirable trait throughout Diabetes.uk.

willie.


ps. strange, "Google" comes up as misspelt in Mozilla Firefox's Dictionary.
 
Hi again,

I couldn't quite understand why hitting "f5" finally resolved the problem, so I Googled some functions of "f5"

I'm sure many of you will be well aware of F5's function, but I thought I'd post this one anyway.

Though it only covers up to Windows 7, perhaps it's the answer.....
Use the F5 Menu to Troubleshoot Your PC

As your PC boots up, you may encounter one of a multitude of start-up menus and options. Some are for troubleshooting purposes, and others may present options for starting the computer, selecting an operating system, or placing Windows into Safe mode.

The F5 key menu provides a way to manage multiple versions of Windows on one PC. It works the same way:
You press the F5 key just as the computer starts, and hopefully before the Windows logo appears.
What happens after pressing F5 depends on your version of Windows.

In Windows 7 and in Windows Vista, the F5 key summons the Windows Boot Manager, which displays a list of operating systems known to Windows. You can choose one from the list.
Often, when no other version of Windows is installed you just choose to start Windows 7.

Bet you're yawning now.


willie.
 
Well cross your fingers for me as I switch off. Three times this week my computer (windows 8) has tried and failed to configure updates. It then decides it has to revert the configuration and takes half an hour to do it, meanwhile I'm crossing my fingers that it will 1) shut down eventually, 2) start up again.
 
Oh dear phoenix, what a disaster, but the first thing that came to mind was... if you haven't already done so, have you checked to confirm your antivirus is up to date and have you tried running a deep virus check. Doing so wouldn't be a waste of time and possibly could solve your problem.

Keep us all updated.

All the best to you, and hoping you manage to resolve your problem quickly.

willie.
 
Also,for suspected deep seated infections that anti virus software sometimes doesn't pick up I'd recommend downloading Malwarebytes for free,booting into safe mode and then running a full scan-if that reveals nothing then I'd then download Malware bytes anti rootkit software and then run the scan twice in case it picks something up,the second scan will confirm all traces of the malware has been removed,also,this software also has a repair facility in case any damage has been done to the critical system files by the malicious program.
 
It happened again, Microsoft website says it is a known problem and offers a fix that didn't fix it.
Norton says that everything is OK.
 
Not sure if this is helpful but I have been advised by Avast spyware to use Google Chrome as my web browser when Windows no longer available for updates.
 
Just found this one that was never addressed from 5/9, and decided to answer just in case Carmen needs help still.

This computer should probably be brought to a computer shop to be serviced. Windows 8 and 8.1 make it difficult to recover files.

Also as far as the 8.1 upgrade, I had a laptop with 8 that I upgraded to 8.1 and almost fell into the same trap as you with geting locked out, but I wrote everything down as I was doing it so that if something went wrong I'd have the info written down. I was able to go in and undo the Windows Live Account default of 8.1 upgrade, but it was not easy. PS: You can read this article to know how yo upgrade to Windows 8.1.

For the fact that you are completely locked out of your system and you probably do not have system recovery disc's or thumb drive media, it means that an advanced computer knowledge individual will need to visit this system. One way to gain access to the data is to boot the system off of Linux Disc, BUT due to UEFI, UEFI blocks OS other than Windows 8 or 8.1 from running on systems if set a certain usually default way. More info on UEFI here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface

My laptop has the UEFI configured in such a way that if the Windows 8 or 8.1 ever had gotten corrupted, I would never have been able to gain access to the BIOS to make changes. I had to disable UEFI in the operating system to give the BIOS controls back to me in order to run an other than Windows 8 or 8.1 OS. You can also check out this guide to know what to do when you locked out of Windows 8.1 computer.
 


hey do what i did , tore the windows 8.1 hard drive out. put a windows 7 in I have no problem
 
No comfort to those affected, I know, but the answer to all this constant Windows hassle is to bite the bullet, abandon Microsoft, and join the Apple Mac brigade. After decades of Windows unfriendliness I gave up the struggle last winter. An expensive solution, but ever since, sheer bliss! (And you get free system upgrades, too, which work first time and are always better than what they replace. When has that ever been true for Windows?).
 
I second that. Apple are so simple to use even a tehnophobe like me can use it.
 
Big move to do that as the compatible software can be very very expensive. Windows 7 was a great OS (as was XP) ... Windows 8 is garbage.
 
Hi Willie! No need to format the HDD and reinstall. Boot your computer from PCUnlocker Live CD and it allows you to unlock either local or microsoft account login.
 
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