Cherry-picked via 3-way apply onto stage HEAD (post-Release-A/B/C1).
Resolved boot.js conflict: took PR's parameterized
populateModelDropdown({preferProfileDefaultOnFreshBoot:true}) call
(the whole point of #2726) on top of master's #2716 boot path.
Co-authored-by: starship-s <starship-s@github.users.noreply.github.com>