Win 8 Comes with No Boot Menu/Safe Mode from Cold

I was surprised to find that my new Win 8/8.1 as delivered does not present any Boot Menu or Safe Mode on pressing the usual F8, or any other, whilst booting. The only way into Safe Mode that I could find was to use MSCONFIG whilst in Normal Mode. But to do that you need to have the PC booting normally.

But what if your PC won't start up normally in the 1st place? Maybe a driver is corrupt or a virus has taken control? It would seem that you are stuffed.

However after searching the Web, there is a way ( http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/win... ):
In a Command Prompt running as Admin issue the command:

bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy

Then on a restart you'll find F8 works as usual presenting a normal Boot Menu (not pessing F8 still boots normally).

If you want, to put the PC back to as it was use the command:

bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy standard

Yet while searching the Web I also found reports of users getting into Safe Mode from cold. Maybe they had already done the above but didn't say or maybe some installs do have F8 activated?

Has anyone else found this?

That's one of many good reasons to create a rescue disk. Note, however, that if Windows 8.1 fails to boot normally twice in succession then the next boot should automatically go to the boot menu.

Haven't tried it but seems it can be done with some effort

I think this illustrates one of the very common design flaws of modern software.

If it is not working properly for what ever reason, then what you need to be able to do is get on line to look up the answer. Unfortunately if it is not working then you probably can not get on line.

I know most also have a smart phone, but I for one find them horrible to use, partly as we have a terrible signal but mainly because the screen is so small.

Effort is right! I had seen the <Shift>F8 method before I posted here, but no matter how many times I tried it never responded.

Even if it works the <Shift>F8 method takes 5 more steps/screens/clicks than the bcdedit method.

Microsoft seem to have taken the view that things are so much better you don't need to use safe mode, don't need to close Win 8 metro apps, don't need to shut computers down, etc. All of these have been made less obvious to the end user as Microsoft feel they are just not needed in the modern OS.

Reminder: To check the current state of bootmenupolicy run as Admin:

bcdedit /enum {default}