Too much snow ?
(didn't catch the news today ...)

Played too loud or what ?

For those who want to have their Restore Points retained, look here :

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/127417-system-restore-points-stop-xp-dual-boot-delete.html

Notice that what's named XP in there is to be named W7 and what's Vista is to be W8 (or whatever two OS versions are in order). Thus, do NOT apply the import of the Registry part; instead apply the changes manually.

Important : When you do not see the drive of that other OS in your Explorer, it means that it got no drive letter assigned. Then do that first with the Virtual Disk Manager. Once that has been done, you can follow the tutorial in the given link.

After it has been applied, your other OS disk/partition will still show in Explorer, but when you click it it will say "Device not available" (or something like that). Of course it implies that you won't be able to access that other OS disk/partition from the one which is active - but that's the price to pay for your Restore Points not disappearing.

Additionally to what's told in the link, I applied the both vise versa. So, I also excluded the W7 partition in the W8 Registry. This activity will delete the Restore Points you had in W7 (which for me stayed all the time) for one time, but after all is set they will stay.
... As how it now looks ...

Hope this helps someone.

Peter

Hey, super !

But a small reminder (but for fun of course) : it is you yourself who created all these "restart" problems with your little pitch problem. So, apparently I *again* did something wrong in this department (the solution for you created problems for others and to solve that now you have another problem again).

But really, great to know where I must look for now.
Great thanks and sorry for the inconvenience,
Peter

Create a new partition and dunk another OS in there. Could be your W7. But otherwise another dummy W8. That will give you the dual boot option automatically and that always carries an F8.

But when you're into adventures :
Look at the BCDEdit commands, and look for something like copy. You will be able to create that dummy boot menu, one of the options being empty. The sheer fact that the menu is there (you can choose something) will bring the F8. I *think* it is quite harmless when you create a dummy entry like that, but maybe it's a good idea to change the Guids of the (copied) dummy one (just change one character).

But you won't dare to do this ...
(but have Acronis)

Peter

Sorry for the horrible latency in my answers...

In fact, yes it should be F8 to access this special menu in W8, but for whatever reason, I can't access it anymore. I maintained F8 throughout the POST sequence, I pressed it like a strobe would, I swore while attempting for the 10th time... I can't access it !!!

What about a foreground process being something with a screen ? So, when the error message is on-screen it will become a foreground process ?