Steps To Enable The F8 Key To Start Safe Mode In Windows 8

Windows 8 issues

Most of you who have upgraded your computers to Windows 8, are facing issues with booting and rebooting your systems. Some users complained that their Windows 8 systems take a lot of time to startup. Hence, Microsoft has introduced a new boot loader for Windows 8, which would bring down said time to a tolerable level. However, Microsoft has also removed the ability to access the Advanced Boot Options screen, which was available earlier when the user pressed the F8 key during startup. This has deprived Windows users of the facility to access Safe Mode easily. Now, a user would have to restart Windows 8 in the Safe Mode rather than having the option during the initial startup.

According to the Windows tech support, this means that the user would need to start Windows 8, and then tell it to restart in the safe mode, or ask the Windows to reboot in safe mode if it fails to start. If you’re looking for a way around this, the following instructions tell of how to re-enable the F8 key function so you don’t have to restart Windows 8 needlessly.

·       In the first step, you would need to open the elevated command prompt. Once you do, you’ll be at the C:\Windows\System32> prompt. Now, you need to enter the following, and then press the Enter key.

bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy

·       Now, press the Enter key again. You would get a message from Windows saying The operation completed successfully, if you have entered the correct prompt. Now, restart Windows 8 and press the key F8 while the booting happens. This would help you to access Safe Mode and other Advanced Boot options.

·       You can also disable the F8 key in Windows 8. For this, go back to the original Windows 8 setting, and open an elevated command prompt to type in the following command:

Windows 8 updates

bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy standard

·       As earlier, press Enter and you would see the same message from Windows: The operation completed successfully if you have entered the command correctly. Now, you can go ahead and restart Windows 8.

These steps would help you to enable and disable the F8 key functionality in your Windows 8 computer. Feel free to contact our technical support team to know more about the features of the Safe mode option.