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~~Vic Ferri, WinTips and Tricks

Adding Safe Mode To Your Windows XP Boot Menu

Editor's Note:  To see Vic's previous article on adding XP's Recovery Console to your boot menu, go here:
http://personal-computer-tutor.com/abc3/v22/vic22.htm

Normally, you need to press F8 at boot up to get into Safe Mode in XP. If you find yourself using Safe Mode a lot or just like the idea of having the choice to enter Safe Mode in front of you at every startup, you can add the Safe Mode option to your boot menu. This way you will never have to repeatedly tap the F8 key again to gain access to it.
The procdure is very simple - you don't need to be a geek to do this one. It's just a matter of adding a line to your boot.ini file which you will find in your root drive - ie: C:\ - or you can access it by right clicking My Computer, going to Properties , clicking the Advanced tab and then the Settings tab. Under the Startup and Recovery section, click the Edit button which will open up your boot.ini in Notepad. Examine it and you will see your Windows XP system listed there - it will look something like this:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect


Select and copy the entire line and paste it as a new separate line under it, so you have two lines the same, ie:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

Now edit, the line you pasted by changing the words "Microsoft Windows XP Professional" to something like "XP Safe Mode"
(the words can actually be anything you want - this will be the text you see on your boot menu)

Next add this line to the END of the line you pasted:

/safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog

Save your changes and that's it. The two lines, using the above the example, should now look like this:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="XP Safe Mode" /fastdetect /safeboot:minimal /sos /bootlog

Tip - to make sure you didn't make any errors:

1. Click Start>Run and type MSCONFIG
2. Click the Boot.ini tab.
3. Click Scan

If there's an error, you will be told, and you should then go over the steps to try to identify where you erred.

Another Editor's Note:  to see Vic's tip on adding a shortcut to Safe Mode in Windows 9X, read this:
http://personal-computer-tutor.com/abc2/v14/newabc14.htm#tip

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Vic Ferri owns the very popular WinTips and Tricks and Registry Answers. Subscribe to either and receive free Windows and Registry Tips. He is also in charge of the Printing Tips pages at Linda's Computer Stop. Vic has also created a program which allows you to Lock & Hide desktop folders in Windows 9X/ME. Read more and get the free demo here. And, he now offers a service to convert PowerPoint presentations to .exe files which can be viewed on computers which do not have PowerPoint installed.