Windows boots really fast; as a result, you may have found that the F8 key does not work. There is a reason for this. Microsoft has reduced the time-periods for F2 and F8 keys to almost near-nil intervals – less than 200 milliseconds if you want to know – as a result of which the chances of it detecting the F8 interrupt is extremely low and users do not get time to press F8 for invoke the boot menu and subsequently enter Safe Mode in Windows.

Enable Safe Mode F8 key in Windows 11/10

While we know how to boot Windows into Safe Mode using the msconfig tool, we have seen how to make Windows show Advanced Boot Options and use it to boot into safe mode. We have also seen how we can display Startup Settings to boot into Safe Mode in Windows 8. In this post, we will see how to enable the F8 key so that we can boot into Windows 11/10/8 Safe Mode, using this key – as we did in Windows 7 and earlier.

You will have to enable the legacy boot policy. Mind you, when you do this, Windows will start a few seconds later. When you enable this policy on a dual-boot system, you will also be able to select the operating system you wish to boot into. You will no longer need to again follow these steps.

F8 keyboard shortcut not working in Windows 11/10

To enable the F8 keep, so that we can use it to start Windows 11/10/8 in safe mode, open an elevated command prompt window. Type the following and hit Enter:

bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy

You will see a message: The operation completed successfully.

You will find that the Windows F8 key which was not working, is now working! You may have to restart your computer to get the setting to work.

If you wish to reverse the setting, type the following and hit Enter:

bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy standard

You will again see a message: The operation completed successfully. The settings will be restored back to Windows defaults.

If you need to boot to safe mode or access the diagnostic & troubleshooting tools frequently, you may want to enable the F8 key; but as mentioned, your Windows 11/10/8 could start a few seconds slower, and so you should be prepared to lose those few seconds.

NOTE: Juan Antonio Diaz of Microsoft has posted another way on how to enable it on TechNet on how to enable safe mode in Windows 11/10. Using this method you can set it so that pressing F8 will boot into safe mode and you can make this setting permanent. To do so, follow these steps:

Close all the applications that are open.

Type “CMD” in Search and right-click on it and click “Run as administrator

Then type in the following command:

bcdedit /enum /v

Now you’ll see two descriptions, look under “Windows Boot Loader” and copy the Identifier entry. In my case, it starts with {72b4a7cd-….}

Using this, type in this command:

bcdedit /copy {72b4a7cd-e189-11e0-af56-eb8118bcf02b}  /d “Windows (Safe Mode)”

Replace the GUID with the one you copied.

Now from the same command prompt type in “MSCONFIG”. Then go to the Boot Tab and check the box where it says “Make all boot settings permanent” click on Apply and click OK.