Is there any further news on a BIOS update that will fix these issues or is there a workaround?
It seems to me this problem wasn't introduced by any specific recent BIOS, since it first occurred for me when I wasn't updating a BIOS.
Instead, I was setting up the EFI System Partition to allow me to boot into linux using grub or rEFInd. At some point I let windows go into hibernate mode and since then I haven't been able to get into the BIOS using F2 or F12 and when I do get into the BIOS using the special windows reboot procedure I cannot save any changes to the boot settings.
In other words; my DELL has made it completely impossible to boot into anything else than Windows 8, unless I switch to legacy mode and boot from CD. This has me very worried that if anything happens to my windows installation, I will not be able to do anything to fix it.
My question is this; while we are waiting for BIOS A14 to fix all these issues, is there anything we can do as a workaround? I am very hesitant to touch the EFI System Partition for fear of damaging the windows boot process as well, but since people say removing the hard disk completely restores direct access to the BIOS, it seems to me the contents of the ESP may be causing the problems?
Otherwise, it could be in the UEFI persistent memory. Is there a tool to reset the UEFI settings to complete default, including wiping all the alternative boot methods I added myself? Maybe there are BCDEDIT commands that can be used to achieve this?