Surface Pro 4 / Microsoft Hello Face Recognition - Not working

[vadaseri]

Surface Pro 4 / Microsoft Hello Face Recognition - Not working

Bought my 12.3" Surface Pro 4 256GB Multi-Touch Tablet less than a year ago. Used face recognition (Microsoft Hello?) out of the box. Totally forgot to set a PIN or password or recovery USB. Now the face recognition doesn't work and I am stuck. Camera doesn't turn on.

Tried to reset the password with my gmail account, no luck. I could see it connect to WiFi but password reset was not propagated. Searched the forums but none of them offered a solution. What are my options? How do I reset it to factory defaults so that I can start using it again?

Can anyone help?
Thanks

 

[sharpuser]

How could you register Hello? without a PIN or password? Mystery.

Let's try a cold boot, and see what happens if the camera is not available:

1) Hold Power for 25 seconds.
2) Hold Power and Volume Up until "Surface" logo is displayed. Release buttons.
3) On the Surface UEFI screen, choose Devices, and turn off Front Camera.
4) Exit and save changes.

If this does not work, repeat, but turn Front Camera back on. Then we will investigate next step.

 

[vadaseri]

Thanks sharpuser.

Following your instructions, I turned off the Front Camera in UEFI screen and saved. Did not work.

Then turned the Front Camera back on. Getting the same error as before.

 

[sharpuser]

Create a new user from the Accounts setting, and then grant it Administrator rights. Then shut down and login with the new account. Delete the previous.