Page 835 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

Most of the time, you’ll use the boot logging option only at the

request of a technician you’ve phoned for help. After confirming
the operating system startup, the technician may ask you to open
ntbtlog.txt in Notepad and search for particular words or phrases—
usually the word “fail.”

4. Enable Safe Mode.

Safe Mode starts up Windows in a special, stripped-down, generic,

startling-looking startup mode—with the software for dozens of
hardware and software features turned off. Only the very basic
components work: your mouse, keyboard, screen, and disk drives.

Everything else is shut down and cut off. In short, Safe Mode is the
tack to take if your PC won’t start up normally, thanks to some
recalcitrant driver.

Once you select the Safe Mode option on the Startup menu, you
see a list, filling your screen, of every driver Windows is loading.
Eventually, you’re asked to sign in.

Your screen now looks like it was designed by drunken cavemen,
with jagged, awful graphics and text. That’s because in Safe Mode,
Windows doesn’t load the driver for your video card (on the

assumption that it may be causing the very problem you’re trying
to troubleshoot). Instead, Windows loads a crude, generic driver
that works with any video card.

The purpose of Safe Mode is to help you troubleshoot. If you
discover that the problem you’ve been having is now gone, you’ve
at least established that the culprit was one of the now-disabled

startup items or drivers. If this procedure doesn’t solve the
problem, then contact a support technician.

5. Enable Safe Mode with Networking.

This option is exactly the same as Safe Mode, except that it also
lets you load the driver software needed to tap into a network or
onto the internet—an arrangement that offers a few additional