Is "Safe Mode" Actually SAFE?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2019-05-06
·
961 words · ~4 min read
0:00
so picture this you're all excited because you found
0:04
this amazing free software that will record your frame rates anonymize your
0:09
web activity and control your smart fridge all at the same time
0:12
but then you install it and all of a sudden your computer is throwing more
0:17
pop-ups at you than a whack-a-mole game and try as you might you just can't get
0:21
rid of the bloody thing you're just about to sledgehammer your entire pc and
0:26
start over fresh but then you pause but what about safe mode yeah
0:32
what about safe mode it's your secret weapon
0:36
safe mode can be conveniently accessed if Windows 10 keeps failing to boot or
0:41
by mashing f8 a bunch of times on older systems at startup and selecting it from
0:46
the menu that appears but what exactly does safe mode do
0:51
well surprisingly safe mode isn't actually safe in that it enhances your
0:56
computer's security or anything like that rather safe mode starts your computer
1:01
with the bare minimum of drivers services and background processes that
1:06
it needs to function it would be a little bit like
1:10
firing up your car but the only things that work are your engine brakes gas and
1:16
steering wheel so no ac no satellite radio and no romance mode
1:21
the idea here is that by only loading the essentials Windows won't load
1:26
anything problematic nasty malicious programs are often
1:30
designed to start as soon as you fire up Windows so that they can immediately
1:34
begin serving you ads or stealing your data or what have you so preventing them
1:39
from being loaded into memory makes them much easier to remove
1:43
safe mode can also be used to fix or delete registry entries that are causing
1:47
issues troubleshoot an accidental settings change that's causing you
1:51
headaches or change out your drivers if your currently installed version is
1:55
causing your graphics card or some other piece of hardware to glitch out
2:00
safe mode is also a useful tool if you'd like to run system restore giving
2:05
Windows a shot at getting rid of the offending software or glitch by itself
2:09
by rolling your pc's configuration back to before the problem cropped up in the
2:14
first place in some cases the features that you'd
2:18
want to access in safe mode like the system configuration tool are also
2:22
available while booted normally but the difference is that in cases of a very
2:27
severe infection for example safe mode might help to ensure that your system
2:31
will function for long enough to go in
2:34
and actually make the necessary changes
2:38
keep in mind however that safe mode does have its limitations and you can't
2:42
really use it for regular computing if you fail to solve whatever the
2:46
underlying problem is because it only loads basic drivers and
2:50
services you'll notice all kinds of weird things like the fact that your
2:55
monitor won't run at its native resolution
2:59
and that many of your peripherals might not function properly also you can
3:04
forget about doing any gaming aside from solitaire or minesweeper because safe
3:10
mode only loads the default microsoft display drivers not whatever your GPU
3:15
manufacturer provides you actually don't even get support for
3:19
connecting to the internet by default though you can select safe mode with
3:24
networking if you need to get online while you're troubleshooting furthermore
3:28
unfortunately safe mode isn't a panacea
3:31
some system problems simply cannot be solved by attempting to fix them in safe
3:36
mode such as a hopelessly corrupted registry or a particularly nefarious
3:40
root kit that's embedded itself deeply into the Windows kernel and by the way
3:44
you can learn more about those little bastards up here in those cases your best bet may be to
3:49
just back up whatever data you can format your drive and reinstall Windows
3:54
nonetheless safe mode is a very useful escape hatch if your pc has more bugs
3:59
than the local hourly rate hotel so keep it in mind next time it refuses to boot
4:04
and as always practice safe pc tinkering
4:08
speaking of tinkering freshbooks is for entrepreneurs and the self-employed who
4:12
don't want to tinker around with complicated accounting software it's a
4:16
super simple to use invoicing tool that does way more than just help you create
4:20
and send slick looking invoices it allows you to track your time with their
4:24
timesheet function manage your expenses and keep track of who owes you what it
4:29
also has a feature that tells you when your clients look at your invoice for
4:32
the first time and this is cool the mobile app has all the functionality of
4:36
the desktop version so you can take freshbooks with you wherever you go if
4:40
you have any questions about freshbooks feel free to reach out to their support
4:44
staff where you will speak to a real human being no phone tree no escalations
4:47
no return calls just answers so go visit freshbooks.com techwiki and enter tech
4:53
quickie in the how did you hear about us section when you sign up for your free
4:57
trial so thanks for watching guys like dislike check out our other videos leave a
5:01
comment if you have suggestions for future fastest possible videos and don't
5:04
forget to subscribe so you can see that video because like it's probably going
5:08
to be that video we are fresh we're fresh out of ideas tech it's just like
5:11
it's stagnant there's never anything new happening that we can cover on tech
5:15
quickly i'm just kidding of course there are it's always new that's like what it is