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Originally Posted by BenMcr

There is an alternative:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-gb/w...ings-safe-mode

That's just crazy. How on earth would you expect any non-expert user to ever manage that?!?!

If you don’t have installation media, use the power button to restart your computer three times. This will start the Windows Recovery Environment.

Lol.

---------- Post added at 14:48 ---------- Previous post was at 14:46 ----------

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

I still don't understand why they changed it from something that worked perfectly well (F8) and everybody knew how to use and try to hide it so you need to re-activate it BEFORE you know you need to use it. Perverse logic at best.

To be fair the whole idea is that YOU never NEED to use it.

Windows recovery is designed to be either fully automated, or not intended to be something an end user is able to do one their own anyway.

---------- Post added at 14:51 ---------- Previous post was at 14:48 ----------

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Reading some of the information, it's down to the change to UEFI and SSDs

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/win...nto-safe-mode/



F8 only works if you catch the right point in the boot process. With newer machines it's all much quicker than it used to be i.e potentially down from a many seconds window to 1 second or less. So it's less likely you can hit the kit at the right point consistently to trigger the menu.

That just sounds like a load of rubbish. Not least because UEFI + SSD systems are still a minority now in 2015, let alone when Windows 8 was released.

But on top of that, the "F8 window" has never been long or consistent on any system in the past and it's never been used as an excuse before... not to mention on any multi-OS systems it's at least 30 seconds by default. Sounds more like they're retrospectively making up a fake explanation to cover up yet another dumb "tablet optimized" decision they don't want to admit.

Because face it, removing a keyboard function and replacing it with a touchscreen F8 interface stinks of the whole turning-every-PC-into-a-tablet design philosophy of Windows 8. If it was really anything to do with the timing window being too short they'd have just made activated by a hold-down-the-button-continuously feature like all the other startup/safe mode/bypass modes are.