How to boot Windows 11 into Safe Mode for troubleshooting

As great as Windows is, sometimes you run into issues and they’re not always easy to identify or solve. Safe Mode is a useful feature for these situations. It lets you boot into Windows without loading all the apps and drivers on your PC. This can help pinpoint the cause of certain issues, or make it easier to make changes if your PC is unusable in normal mode. Most Windows versions have Safe Mode, and Windows 11 is no different. In this guide, we’ll show you how to boot into Safe Mode in Windows 11.

There are three different types of Safe Mode in Windows 11, which can be helpful in specific situations. The basic Safe Mode gets you the usual Windows UI but with most programs removed and some drivers disabled. That includes networking drivers, so you can’t access the internet. There’s also a Safe Mode with networking if you need internet access to troubleshoot your PC. Finally, there’s Safe Mode with Command Prompt, which disables the Windows UI and lets you solve problems with the command line.

How to boot into Safe Mode in Windows 11

Recent Windows versions made it a lot easier to boot into Safe Mode. Thanks to the new advanced startup options, you can more easily make your way to these settings without having to press a key at the right time when your computer is starting. That’s helpful because previously what key you had to press could depend on what laptop you had, so it could be different if you had a Surface PC compared to an HP one. This method, on the other hand, works for every Windows 11 PC.

One thing that may be worth noting with this procedure is you’ll only boot into Safe Mode the first time after all of this. Once you restart, you’ll be back to normal. If you think you may need to boot into Safe Mode multiple times, you can also set your PC to always boot into Safe Mode.

How to make Safe Mode the default

If you want to always boot into Safe Mode until you actively disable it, you can follow these steps:

That’s all you need to know about booting Windows 11 into Safe Mode. As we’ve mentioned, this can be an important tool to troubleshoot issues with your PC, but it’s not something you want to be doing all the time. Still, it’s always useful to know for when you do need it.

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Editor at XDA Computing. I've been covering the world of technology since 2018, but I've loved the field for a lot longer. And I have a weird affinity for Nintendo videogames, which I'm always happy to talk about.