How to go in safe mode with Windows 8 (and Windows 10)

Today I wanted to go in safe mode with Windows 8. I supposed that the right way to go there is like it worked for the past 20 years, I pressed F8 at the startup (it worked even with DOS, before Windows). But I didn’t manage to access it: I was pressing F8 and nothing happened.

Why?

Microsoft changed the way to access safe mode. 😡

Not only that. It’s no more a safe mode anymore. It’s just a recovery panel.

Anyway, now there are four different ways to access it:

  1. If you have a problem, hope that Windows will detect it and go it automatically 🙄
  2. Select it from the EFI BIOS – but on most computers, quick boot is enabled, meaning it’s going to be hidden – hard to reach 😑
  3. Select “reboot” from the shutdown menu while pressing the SHIFT key
  4. Edit the boot options in msconfig. I won’t explain this, because if your computer can open msconfig (read: it works fine), it means you don’t need to go in safe mode.

The easiest way is the third, rebooting while pressing shift (very intuitive, I’ll say… almost impossible to guess it!), but what to do if Windows does not load?

Unfortunately the solution is using the setup DVD or a restore disk that you made before…