Build update Diagnostic prompt (Shift+F10 to get command prompt) gone?

The Update process for new Windows 10 builds has shown evolutionary changes over the past two years as part of the Insider Preview Programme.

One noticeable change has been that the ability, by default, to observe behind the scenes events by opening a command prompt with the keyboard shortcut Shift+F10, which has for a long time (back to XP at least), been a means to investigate and interact with the Windows Preinstallation Environment (WinPE), is now apparently disabled.

WinPE does not normally have a graphical shell interface, but used to allow some graphical applications such as Task Manager, Notepad, Regedit for instance, to observe and interact in a limited way with the environment during installation or upgrade with the Shift+F10 shortcut.

Windows Setup has a commandline switch:
"

/DiagnosticPrompt {enable | disable}

Specifies that the Command Prompt is available during Windows Setup. Enable: The Command Prompt can be accessed by pressing Shift+F10 during Windows setup. Disable: The Command Prompt is not available during Windows setup. The Command Prompt wil not be available while offline and OOBE phases are running. This is the default setting. Example: setup /DiagnosticPrompt enable This setting is new for Windows 10, Version 1703.

"
(from:
Windows Setup Command-Line Options | Microsoft Docs)

My question is how to enable this feature during Build updates, which are initiated by Windows Update, rather than by user commands.

Does anyone know if this feature can be re-enabled?

Thanks for the pointer! I have set up a SetupConfig.ini in the specified folder.

The commandline switch is:

Code:

 setup /DiagnosticPrompt enable

according to the source in my post, but yours indicates that I should remove the "/" and insert a "=", it seems.

Does this look OK to you?





I'll have to wait until the next build to see if it works.

+:FacePalm: I only read the bit Starting "Using Windows Update..."

The whole PDF (9.5MB) "Windows Manufacturing" from the link you gave is a mine of Information.

Thanks Bree, I have changed the file.

Just to report that I have just walked in on a laptop that I had modified as above, in the process of upgrading, I presume from 16251.0 to 16251.1000, and that shift+F10 was working fine to show the command console at about 14% after the first reboot.

I have marked this thread solved, thanks to Bree for the directions.

It appears that the C:\Users\Default\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WSUS folder and contents are not persistent after the upgrade, but C:\Windows.old\Users\Default\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\WSUS\setupconfig.ini was present.

Also I needed to make a simple permissions change (modify or full control) before I could save the setupconfig.ini file to the \WSUS\ folder I had just created in that location.

Still, an easy enough change to make.