What is Safe Mode?

Q. What is Safe Mode?

A. Safe Mode is a diagnostic utility built into the Windows operating system that allows you to make repairs to your computer that would otherwise be impossible in Normal Mode. For instance...Let's say you load a new program on your computer and when you restart your pc, your system hangs and refuses to boot into Windows normally. You can usually boot into Safe Mode which will boot your pc with only the minimal amount of drivers needed to boot your pc into Windows. In Safe Mode, your normal colors will be limited because your video drivers have only been partially loaded.

If the program you loaded somehow became corrupted for whatever reason, your pc will generally boot into Safe Mode because its only loading the minimum files necessary to boot into Windows. This means that the corrupted program that you previously installed will not be accessed during the boot process which allows you to go into Safe Mode and reverse any damages that were caused by the install. Now, once inside Safe Mode, you can go into Control Panel and Add/Remove programs and uninstall the faulty program. Alternately, you can do a System Restore from Safe Mode to a time before you installed the software/program that is causing you problems.

Generally, if your pc is able to boot into Safe Mode, your problems are most likely software related as opposed to hardware related, such as in a bad hard drive or bad memory.