What is Windows 11 Safe Mode for?
Start Windows 11 in safe mode is a very useful tool when it comes to solve problems with our operating system or programs installed on it, which can be of great help if we cannot start the system normally or need to start it with some key component of it damaged or corrupted.
New operating systems like Windows 11 tend to wear more and more protections for keep it from getting corrupted, but even so, there are times when for whatever reason this can happen and it is necessary to access in safe mode to solve it. What safe mode does is start the operating system as little as possible, so that if there is a program interfering with the startup, it will not interfere, or if it has a damaged component that is not strictly vital, it will not load and can be repaired, it is also very useful for remove malicious software or drivers, as indicated in the guides to clean NVIDIA drivers with DDU or the Intel graphics drivers.
There are several ways to safely start:
- Normal safe mode: In this mode, only the most basic and essential will be started along with the graphical interface.
- Safe mode with networking: same as above, but in this it will be possible to connect to the internet.
- Secure mode with system symbol: the safest of all, since it does not start a graphical interface and we can only use it with commands.
How to access safe mode in Windows 11 step by step
First of all, comment that the ways to access the safe mode of Windows 11 are exactly the same as in Windows 10, so we can follow these steps in both operating systems.
Safe mode can only be launched from the advanced start menu, which can be launched from Windows as we will explain in the steps below. But, What if we can’t get into Windows? If Windows 11 or Windows 10 detect three consecutive unsuccessful attempts to start will launch safe mode automatically. It can also be forced by forcibly shutting down the pc while Windows is loading if we cannot access the system and it does not automatically detect failed attempts.
Steps to start in safe mode from Windows:
- Enable advanced startup: To start Windows in safe mode, the first thing we will have to do is access the advanced startup options menu. To do that we must hold down the shift key or “Shift” (not block capital) of our keyboard while we open the Windows start menu and press the restart button, after which we can release the shift key. It can also be accessed from the recovery menu and pressing “advanced start”: This will take us to a menu like the following:
In this menu we must choose the following options: “Troubleshoot”, “Advanced options” and finally the “Startup settings” option. When choosing this last option, a description will appear about it and below this a restart button, which we must press to continue with the process.
As a curiosity in the first versions of Windows 11 this menu under continue appears “Exit and continue with Windows 10”, which would be fixed in future versions.
- MS Advanced Start Menu: After restarting, instead of starting Windows, a menu should appear with different options like the one shown in the image below. Among the different options we will select the one of “Enable safe mode”Or the other two safe mode options as needed.
- MS Start Safe Mode: Once the previous steps have been done, we should start without any further problems in safe mode, we will know that everything is fine if it appears “Safe mode” in the corners of our desktop and our version of Windows at the top of the screen, as in the following image.
Safe mode is also available on other Operating Systems
Being such an interesting tool to solve problems, it should be noted that safe mode can not only be found in Windows 10 or Windows 11, other systems such as unix or macOS They have their equivalents, since such a mode is very useful in any modern operating system and allows us to solve certain errors or failures that we could not with a normal operating system startup.
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