Yes because the recovery menu won't be accessible than (which is needed to replace the sticky key executable)

The settings can be changed with bcdedit:

    bcdedit /set {default} recoveryenabled No 

    bcdedit /set {default} bootstatuspolicy ignoreallfailures

Additionally booting from USB/... should be disabled in the BIOS/UEFI options and also access to that should be password secured.

Further more because the person has physical access, the computer should be locked away so that the harddrive can't be accessed. Also all cables should be secured so that no sniffer can be plugged in between. This also especially includes the USB ports on the monitor if those are enabled.

Just this one method, yeah. But unless you encrypt your harddrive you're not going to really get security when someone has physical access to your device.

NOT TESTED: I imagine that as long as you don't have a startup disk, it would. If you have a startup disk, you could likely kick off the repair from the disk.

To paraphrase another comment from imgur: If the hacker has physical access to the machine, it's now their machine.

No, if I exploit your computer and have admin rights, I can use this technique to enable persistent access to it over RDP. This is a common technique that hackers use in enterprise networks.

If the trick is to modify the contents of the file system, then surely booting from a Linux stick or likewise could suffice too.