F11 = Recovery Partition

Well only when the recovery partition is set to active.  :(

Set the recovery partition active to enable the F11

START/run/compmgmt.msc and press enter
select Disk management
Right click the recovery partition
Mark partition as Active
restart pc.

Uninstalling a hotfix using Recovery Console

Original from:http://windowsxp.mvps.org/spuninst.htm

From the Recovery Console, you can not just run the spuninst.exe from within the $ntuninstallkbXXXXXX$ folder.

Within the recovery console you need to do navigate to the spuninst folder and then do:

batch spuninst.txt

When the Recovery Console Password does not work.

This registry edit causes the Recovery Console not to ask for a password. This works for both XP Home and XP Professional.

Start | Run | Regedit
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Setup\RecoveryConsole
Set the DWORD SecurityLevel value to 1
Exit Registry and Reboot