Friday, June 10, 2005
Make XP Enter Safe Mode With USB Keyboards
Safe mode, as we've addressed before, is a barebones mode of Windows which is useful for troubleshooting purposes. Typically, one gets into safe mode by restarting and either holding the CTRL key down or by pressing the F8 button at the right time. This would give a menu with boot options, of which safe mode is one of them. However, if you use a USB keyboard, this isn't an option for you because the USB drivers are not loaded in the DOS environment. For you, you need to tell Windows to load up in safe mode on its next reboot when in regular Windows. To do this, go to the start menu, Run, and enter "msconfig" to launch the System Configuration Utility. Click on the BOOT.INI tab and check the box which says "/SAFEBOOT". Now, when you reboot, it will enter safe mode automatically, and will continue to do so until you go back into this program and uncheck that box (which you can do from safe mode).