Many of you remember that we used to press F8 upon boot to go into safe mode. With Windows 8 and later this is disabled by default to reduce boot times.

To enable this again to allow pressing F8 upon boot:

  1. Left-click the bottom left of your screen where the start orb is or used to be.

  2. Open ‘Command Prompt’ as administrator.

  3. Type ‘bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy’

  4. Reboot.

To undo this:

  1. Left-click the bottom left of your screen where the start orb is or used to be.

  2. Open ‘Command Prompt’ as administrator.

  3. Type ‘bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy standard’

  4. Reboot.

Now your computer will boot slightly slower, but you will be able to access safe mode and other legacy boot options faster if you need it.