Resolved Face recognition has Windows upgrade in limbo

Sorry if I don't know what I am talking about but here goes. I'm sort of out of the loop when it comes to Windows. My knowledge stops around XP. In fact my main PC still runs XP.

My latest laptop is an Acer running Chromebook and I absolutely love it! No bells and whistles, boots up within 5 seconds, has yet to crash, etc. Sorry, but I've just about had it with newer versions of Windows.

My wife's laptop came with Windows 8.1 and she said her computer tried to do an upgrade to Windows 10. I always thought you had to pay for a new operating system. That's just what she told me.

Anyway as of right now the screen is stuck in the log-in mode flashing like crazy with a generic face. Occasionally I'll see a glimpse a message and a check box that says "disable face recognition" and a glimpse of her previous 8.1 log-in screen which is a swan. Does that make any sense?

I can take a video with my phone and post it on YouTube if nobody has ever seen this.

I'm not sure what is going on. But I think if I could get into safe mode and disable the face recognition, it might fix the problem.

The thing is I can't remember how to get into safe mode. I tried F7 and F8 but it didn't work. Or how to pull up safe mode on Windows 8.1.

Thanks.

PS. I will promise this time to write a follow up. I have a four year old daughter that takes up most of my time, work 12 hours shift work and have allot on my mind and sometimes forget about things I post or don't always get a chance to post a followup in a reasonable amount of time.

 

Sometimes it is F2 or one of the other F keys. Could also be the DEL key.

 

Hi jseabolt, "How to get into Safe Mode in W8/8.1" http://www.howtogeek.com/107511/how-to-boot-into-safe-mode-on-windows-8-the-easy-way/
Please supply more info on your wife's laptop (Brand/Model etc.) as key strokes are quite specific on some makes of laptops.

Moderator note: Link removed.

 

I took a short video with my smartphone but I'm having trouble uploading it to You tube. I'll try to upload it from my "XP" machine.

The laptop is a Dell. I don't know the model # though. I'm at work right now.

But I was able to fix it. I'm hoping I can explain how I did it. Seems like I had to hit either F8 or F9 key before I could get into recovery mode. I first selected "Safe mode" but that was pointless. If I clicked on the Windows icon in the lower left hand screen, it wouldn't do anything. In other words I could not get into the control panel.

So I selected "repair and troubleshoot log in or boot up" and did a Windows 10 version of "System Restore" where it reverted back to it's original settings but kept personal files. Hopefully someone is more familiar with this system and can go from what I posted with the correct/actual steps.

My theory was this would set the computer back to Windows 8.1 but to my amazement, my wife said it finalized the upgrade to Windows 10 and works fine!

I should have wrote down my exact steps but this was more/less a shot in the dark attempt and didn't really thing it would even work.