Windows Safe Mode is very useful when you want to troubleshoot your PC’s problems. Your PC may misbehave for various reasons. The cause could be the software or hardware you just installed or a virus. You may encounter an almost disastrous situation where your PC refuses to boot up in a normal way. In all of these circumstances, booting into a Window safe mode will let you have a chance to fix the problem.

What is Windows Safe Mode
When you boot your computer into Windows safe mode, Windows load the minimal sets of software so that the administrative or diagnostic tasks can be done. You can choose what sets of software/drivers to load at the startup of safe mode but I recommend that you just use a default safe mode boot. It means that your network connection and display drivers, etc., won’t start. So, the screen looks very rough.

How to boot into safe mode
You may need to use a different method for some computers (e.g., Dell computers) but typically you need to F8 key to get into safe mode. When you first power up your computer, the machine’s screen is black and you will see some texts scroll up (e.g., keyboard, hard drive…). Don’t do anything yet because it is a list of hardware installed on your machine and a program on the motherboard is checking them. Right after the list of equipment, you may see “starting Windows.” At this moment, you need to start tapping the F8 key until you see the safe mode menu screen. As I said earlier, just booting into a regular safe mode is recommended.

What can I do once I’m in the safe mode?
Well, you can uninstall the software you just installed if you think it’s the cause. You can run an anti-virus software if your PC is likely to be infected. In the worst case scenario where you think you may need to reinstall Windows, you can move all of your important files to a removable disk just like I did a while back.