Recently a reader wrote in who couldn't get his Windows machine to go into Safe Mode. For those who are lucky enough to never have seen it, Safe Mode is used to troubleshoot various Windows problems. Generally Windows will go into Safe Mode automatically when it's annoyed about something such as an incompatible driver.
When it starts up in Safe Mode, Windows loads a default minimal set of drivers. Most people are horrified when they see what Safe Mode does to the video driver. The default driver is often a lower resolution than people normally use, so you end up with what I like to call "Windows for the visually impaired." (Believe me, you'll know it when you see it.)
In any case, sometimes you actually want Windows to go into Safe Mode, so you can fix something yourself or when you want to make sure no extra software is running behind the scenes. To go into Safe Mode, you can press the F5 key while Windows is booting up. Alternatively, you can press F8 to see a menu of Startup options.
I've always used the F8 key to see the menu. However, for whatever reason the reader who wrote in couldn't get the F8 key to work. So I found an alternate way to make the menu show.
1. Click Start|Run.
2. In the Run dialog box type MSCONFIG and click OK.
3. In Windows 98, click the Advanced button and then Enable Startup Menu. In Windows XP, click Diagnostic Startup in the General tab.
4. Click OK and click Yes to restart the computer.
Once you see the menu, you can select Safe Mode. After you've figured out the process, be sure to run MSCONFIG again to tell Windows to boot up normally again.
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