How To Start Windows 8.1 in Safe Mode
Learn how to get into Safe Mode in the latest version of Microsoft Windows.
You can get into Safe Mode by enabling the legacy boot menu. If the system doesn't boot normally and you have a Windows 8 or 8.1 install disk handy, you can enable it by booting from the install disk, then following the screenshots below to enable the menu. The command in the last screen is below so you can copy it exactly:
bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy
- Boot the Windows 8(.1) Install or System Recovery media and click Next at the first screen when asked for your language preference.
- Click the "Repair your computer" link at the next screen.
- Click the Troubleshoot button.
- Then click Advanced Options.
- And finally, click Command Prompt. The avaialble options for you may be different depending on what boot media you used to get to this point, but as long as you have this Command Prompt option, you can run the command.
- Run the command and you should see this as your output on the screen once it completes. The command should take less than a second to run.
After performing these steps and rebooting, you can press F8 and access the menu to boot into Safe Mode.
If you don't have a Windows 8 or 8.1 Install disk or System Recovery disk handy, you can also run this command when the system tries to automatically attempt Startup Repairs (and fails, giving you access to a command prompt window). You can use the screenshots above for reference. If the automatic repair menu allows you the option of starting a command prompt window, the screenshots above will apply and can be used for reference when trying to run this command.
For a detailed video walkthrough, check out the Tom's Hardware Tutorial Video above.
The above content was adapted from our Tom's Hardware Tutorials Forum contributed by community member The_Prophecy.
Follow Marcus Yam @MarcusYam. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.
That turns out to be really, really hard to do if you're accessing Win 8 in a window via Remote Desktop, VNC, or in a virtual machine. There is no "corner" to catch the mouse cursor. Because mouse position is updated at specific time intervals instead of every pixel of movement, moving the mouse past the corner results in the remote system stopping the mouse just shy of the corner before the local system takes control of it.
While I'm not opposed to the new paradigm (I love the new task manager), forcibly removing the old one reduced functionality in certain use cases. It's not just a matter of users being unwilling to learn. Win 8.x really is worse in some respects.
Real world differences are negligible, and in gaming it's marginally slower AND more unstable.
Yeah, but anyone with a brain uses Process Explorer, so it's a moot point.
Which is only relevant to the tablet market, where Window 8 is, undoubtedly, better than Windows 7 ANYWAY.
You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. Moving a mouse to a corner is nearly impossible in a multi-screen setup or in a windowed virtual machine... Unless... Oh, wait, UNLESS WINDOWS 8 SNAPS THE MOUSE to the corners on a multi-screen setup (which still doesn't fix the problem for virtual machines), which is absolutely HATEFUL and only breaks things. It's by far the most terrible thing of Windows 8 have to deal with at work. Granted there's loads and loads of other problems. Tiny problems, admittedly, but all together they make for a terrible experience when compared to Windows 7.
The great thing about a desktop OS is that you can use keyboard shortcuts - Win 8 handles keyboards, touch, and mouse better than windows 7. It's a learning curve that once you get over Windows 8 becomes more efficient even without a ton of keyboard shortcuts. Casual users being lazy to learn hot keys doesn't make the OS worse.
In both Win 7 and Win 8 I use the windows key then start typing to search for the app I need to use. Win 8 does this a little better because I can search down to the setting without having to go to say the control panel to switch the audio output from my SPDIF output on the motherboard to the HDMI output.
In windows 7 I would follow this process: Win key then search for control panel. Search in the control panel for audio devices then double click audio devices.
In 8 I can start typing "Audio" on the start screen, eliminating steps. Then one mouse click to change from searching apps to settings and audio devices is right there.
This is one example but universal search in Windows 8 beats 7 hands down if you have a keyboard. Using "Win+Q" searches apps from the desktop and in apps in a metro app like netflix or hulu plus. "Win+F" searches for files while "Win W" searches settings. Even without these specific shortcuts you can just start typing at the start screen and search without any shortcuts from the keyboard, which is awesome.