Windows won't go into Safe Mode

Helpline Q&A Directory

Recently I discovered that my Windows 98 PC wouldn't go into Safe Mode. It goes through the motions of starting in Safe Mode but then displays the shutdown screen. Is there a cure?

We've never heard of this problem affecting only Safe Mode before, but because it occurs whenever you attempt to start Windows a corrupt or missing wininit.exe or vmm32.vxd is probably causing the problem.

Retrieving a fresh copy from the Windows CD-ROM can repair wininit.exe. As you are running Windows 98 you should be able to use System File Checker (sfc.exe) to do this easily. See tip Restore missing files using System File Checker.

Vmm32.vxd is a file that is specially created for your system hardware configuration when you install Windows. The only way to recreate this is to locate and rename the existing copy to vmm32.old (from MS-DOS, since it is in use while Windows is running) and then reinstall Windows.