25th January 2002
We're all used to the way Windows 9x works, but if you're searching for superior security on the same platform, then Windows 2000 or XP are your only choices. For the Home (regular) user, XP is perfect. Does it have a Safe Mode, though? Kinda. Tap F8 immediately before you see the Windows splash screen pop up. What if you can't get into Windows that way? Time to run the Recovery Console. Insert the original operating system CD, boot from it, then step through the "blue screen" wizard until you can tap "R" to shell into the Recovery Console. Here, you must first enter your Administrator password (if you have one). Now what? Type "HELP" for a list of possible commands. FIXBOOT writes a new boot sector on the system partition; FIXMBR repairs the boot partition's master boot code. DISKPART manages partitions on hard disk volumes (kinda like FDISK); BOOTCFG is used to manipulate the BOOT.INI for boot configuration and recovery. This may just save you from having to do a complete reinstall of the OS. Be careful what you do here, though. For more information, please refer to MSKB Q307654.