 Safe Mode
Q: What is safe mode and why is it important to me?
A: Safe mode is a special mode for the Windows® Operating System where only the bare minimal device drivers are loaded. More often then not, it's used as a diagnostic environment or an environment in which to make changes to the Operating System that might not normally be allowed while within the normal environment and system errors can be corrected. Click on the Start button, click on Help and Support, and type "Safe Mode" (without the quotes) for more information.
Q: That's all well and good but how do I access safe mode?
A: There's a couple of ways to access safe mode. The easiest way is to reboot the PC, and after the POST (Power On Self Test) you'd start pressing the F8 key over and over again at one second intervals (For more information about the F8 key, see Function Keys) . The POST is that silly mumbo jumbo of text that fills the screen before the Boot-Screen loads. Some people may not see this due to BIOS settings. Either way, reboot the system and then pound the living snot out of the F8 key over and over again until the special menu Advanced Options menu appears.
[ click on image to view enlarged ]
Safe Mode
Note:
You can also access the Advanced Options menu and safe mode by clicking Start > Run > typing "msconfig" without the quotes > press Enter > and then tick the /SAFEBOOT switch for XP. Windows 9x/ME users click on the System Configuration Utility > General Tab > Advanced > and tick Enable Startup Menu. (Both can be reversed without any problems.)
Q: Okay, I'm there. What now?
A: Now you will, under most circumstances, select the Safe Mode option. Do not, for instance, select the "Safe Mode with Networking" option. If you do select that you're going to load the OS and, if you have an always on broadband connection, you'll leave yourself vulnerable to attack as you don't have any firewall loaded, no anti-virus software running, and absolutely nothing to protect you. So unless you're an advanced user (who has no use for this page or this information as they'd already know this) then you will want to only select the "Safe Mode" option.
[ View enlarged Safe Mode image ]
OS: All Platforms > General
Date: 05/24/05
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