Windows 10: Making Everything Harder Than it Needs to Be:

Recently, I worked on a Windows 10 Dell computer that wasn’t able to finish loading Windows. I decided to try booting into Safe Mode, because sometimes just going into Safe Mode will restore functionality. Also, in Safe Mode it’s often possible to remove recently installed software that could have caused Windows to fail to load.

Unfortunately getting into Safe Mode wasn’t as easy as it used to be. Remember when you just had to press F8 several times while booting up to get the list of choices that includes things like Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Networking, etc.?  That was way too simple.  You can reboot into Safe Mode quite easily if you are already in Windows 10 but what if you can’t boot into Windows 10?  Here is a link to a good article about Safe Mode and Windows 10:  http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2569556/safe-mode-windows.html

Warning! There’s the potential to REALLY mess things up, so if you’re not comfortable going under the hood, get some help.

To enable F8 to get you into Safe Mode in Windows 10, you will need to boot from a Windows 10 disc (installation DVD or your system repair disk or your USB recovery drive) and then carefully follow a bunch of steps.

Have you made a Windows 10 Recovery disk or USB key? If not consider doing this now!

Here is how to create your own Windows 10 Repair Disc:
To open the disc creation tool, press the Windows key, type recdisc. Click on recdisc Run
command.
The disc creator will open on the desktop. Select the disc-burner drive with a writable CD or
DVD in it and click the Create disc button to create a recovery disc.
Here’s a link to more information: http://www.howtogeek.com/131907/how-to-create-and-use-a-recovery-drive-or-system-repair-disc-in-windows-8/

This will enable you to get into Safe Mode with F8 during system boot.  This process is described in the Tom’s Hardware link above.

So it’s doable but I am mystified as to why Microsoft changed how to access Safe Mode when a computer can’t boot into Windows. The story has a happy ending! After enabling Safe Mode, the Dell computer was able to be fixed and is once again in service.