Hard_Configurator - Windows Hardening Configurator

[LightWave]

tried both...

7. Disable driver signature enforcement.

8. Disable early launch anti-malware protection.

...didn't work.. :-(

 

[Andy Ful]

Have you got Windows 10 installation media?

 

[LightWave]

There is no cd drive. I installed Windows 10 using a usb months ago, (free upgrade from Win 8.1 - recovery partition was lost) the usb has since been wiped and reused for other things... :-|

 

[Andy Ful]

Before refreshing the system from Windows 10 media, you can try the trick with disabling 'secure boot' and change UEFI to SCM (something that allows booting in legacy BIOS mode on UEFI systems).

 

[LightWave]

Ok.. will give it a go... cheers.
Many thnaks for your help.

 

[LightWave]

Ok tried it... disabled Secure boot (no option to change UEFI to SCM though) ...still goes back to blue screen after Asus loading screen.

 

[Andy Ful]

If this did not help, theres a possibility to run system from Windows 10 media, go to command prompt, run regedit, and load registry hive for offline registry editing. Then you can quickly revert any changes done by Hard_Configurator. But, it will not help if the problem is due to new Windows update or due to installing another program.
The second possibility is to refresh the system from Windows 10 media.

 

[LightWave]

Ok tried it... disabled Secure boot (no option to change UEFI to SCM though) ...still goes back to blue screen upon loading.

 

[Andy Ful]

Ok tried it... disabled Secure boot (no option to change UEFI to SCM though) ...still goes back to blue screen upon loading.

Is there something like Legacy (to replace UEFI)?

 

[LightWave]

Nope there's no option for legacy... just an option to disable secure boot, which i've done, but still no joy yet.

 

[Andy Ful]

Have you got in BIOS any option to disable UEFI?

 

[Andy Ful]

I have downloaded the manual for ASUS_EeeBook_X205TA, and I do not see there na option to change UEFI boot.
So, I cannot see other solutions except those from post #47.

 

[LightWave]

No, no option to disable UEFI can be found.

Under Boot tab - i've got "boot option priorities" - Boot Option # 1 ------- [Windows Boot Manger] - with the option to disable it.

Under the Security tab - I've just got Administrator password, and Secure Boot menu - with the option to disable it.

Under Save and Exit tab.... I've got Windows boot manager which does nothing but restart the system to blue screen.
...also got "Launch EFI Shell from filesystem device" :-S ..... upon clicking a popup box displays "not found".

 

[Andy Ful]

Yes, very minimalistic BIOS.

 

[LightWave]

yeah, useless bios.. :-S

Ok.... will probably have to look into making a Windows 10 recovery usb... doing all this from an old XP machine... hope it works.. :-(

Many thanks again for your help.

 

[Andy Ful]

You are welcome. I am here, if you want any help.

 

[LightWave]

Cheers.. =]

 

[Andy Ful]

I am curious what spoiled @LightWave's system. Actually, I do not know which Windows policy could do something like that. Hard_Configurator does not touch system files - all files in C:\Windows, C:\Program Files, C:\Program Files (x86) are whitelisted and this cannot be changed from Hard_Configurator. First, I thought that maybe Startup Sentinel blocked something, but I never heard about such problem, too.
The only (rare) possibilities could be related to:
* blocking Windows Script Host, if some hardware driver needed a script to load;
* SRP blocking something in the hardware directory in the User Space (Intel, AMD, etc.) that was needed to load the driver.

If so, Widows Script Host should be enabled or in the second case, the hardware directory should be whitelisted by path (whitelisting by hash may be not sufficient after software update).
Thanks @LightWave for your help, I will add a warning in the installation guide, to make system restore point before running Hard_Configurator.

 

[LightWave]

It gets worse.... I made a Windows 10 bootable usb using the Rufus utility to see if I could do a repair, or even just reinstall windows if it turned out I couldn't recover.... but the laptop will not even boot from usb :-( ...(no option in bios)... dont think it can see it untill windows actually loads. nightmare.

Wonder if it's possible to connect laptop to old XP pc using usb or something, and recover that way or pull data from it?

 

[Andy Ful]

It is strange that you cannot use bootable media. I experienced similar problems with some laptops, but disabling secure boot, and changing from UEFI to Legacy boot, always helped to use bootable media. In theory, you can directly connect the hard drive from the laptop to the second laptop with Windows XP (as the second hard drive). Next, you can edit offline the Registry. But removing the hard drive from one laptop and connecting it to another, it is not the easy way to solve the problem.
I have a question, how you managed to install the system on the new laptop? And, why this does not work now? Maybe the answers will help you to find the solution.