How To Enable Safe Mode in Windows 8

Occasionally in Windows, you might mess something up. Back in the day, you used to be able to turn off the computer and just hold F8 down when turning it back on to be able to boot into Safe Mode which only loaded some of the most basic Windows services so you can solve the issue and get back to the way things were. In Windows 8, there is no way to just hold F8, you must first enable Safe Mode. Here’s how.

1. Hover over the far right or left corners of the screen to bring up the Charms menu.

2. Select Search from the Charms menu.

3. Search for cmd and then right click the command prompt icon that shows up and select Run As Administrator.

4. When the command prompt opens up, type the following with hitting enter at the end of the line:

bcdedit /enum /v

5. You’ll be presented with a list of information regarding your system. Look for “Windows Boot Loader” and find the section that has the description “Windows 8 Consumer Preview” and highlight and copy the entire part (include the { } and everything in between) under identifier.

6. Then in the command prompt type the following with hitting enter at the end of the each line (including the “”s):

bcdedit /copy youridentifierstring /d “Windows Developer Preview (Safe Mode)”
msconfig

7. When the msconfig program opens, click on the Boot Tab.

8. Select the new entry called Windows Developer Preview (Safe Mode).

9. Select Safe Boot.

10. Select Make All Boot Settings Permanent, then OK, then Yes.

11. Now, when you restart, you will be given the choice to boot into Normal or Safe Mode.