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Booting into Safe Mode

Symptoms

A guest or host Windows operating system: 
  • Has failed.
  • Has stopped responding and displayed a blue screen with a stop code.
  • Has stopped responding.
  • Keeps rebooting for no apparent reason.
  • Has performance problems.
  • Is slow.
  • Has an application that is not working properly.
  • Is experiencing network problems.

Purpose

This article describes how to boot any version of a Windows operating system in Safe Mode. Safe Mode disables all third party applications and non-essential Windows services. If the symptoms are resolved when using Safe Mode then the source of the symptoms are related to a third party application or nonessential Windows service, not Windows itself.  

Resolution

To boot any version of a Windows operating system in Safe Mode:
 
Caution: Depending on your problem, following this procedure may remove a software environment that is required to test the health of your operating system.
  1. Restart the operating system or power off and power on the computer.
  2. When the computer start, press and hold F8.

    Note: You may see a series of messages that display information about hardware and memory. This is called POST information. If you see POST information, you do not need to press F8 until the screen goes black. Make sure the mouse focus is inside the virtual machine, by clicking inside the console window.

    You are presented with a text menu of boot options.

    Note: If you do not see this text menu and Windows boots normally, repeat steps 1-2.
     
  3. Select a safe mode and press enter.
    1. If the operating system issues involve networking, select Safe Mode with Networking.
    2. If the operating system issues do not involve networking, select Safe Mode.
If the symptoms are resolved when using Safe Mode then the source of the symptoms are related to a third party application or nonessential Windows service, not Windows itself. You can try selectively disabling individual services and startup applications to narrow the cause of the problem. For more information, see Using the Windows System Configuration utility (1004010). If the problem reoccurs, you may have to investigate uninstalling third party software and Microsoft applications.

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Actions
  • KB Article: 1004011
  • Updated: Oct 23, 2009
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