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Lesson 3: Advanced Boot Options

In this lesson, you will learn about the Windows 2000 advanced boot options. These options include Safe Mode, Enable Boot Logging, Enable VGA Mode, Last Known Good Configuration, Directory Services Restore Mode, and Debugging Mode.

After this lesson, you will be able to

• Explain advanced boot options.

Estimated lesson time: 5 minutes

Safe Mode

If your computer won't start, you might be able to start it by using the Safe Mode advanced boot option. Pressing F8 during the operating system selection phase displays a screen with advanced options for booting Windows 2000. If you select Safe Mode, Windows 2000 loads and uses only basic files and drivers, including the mouse, VGA monitor, keyboard, mass storage, default system services, and no network connections. If you choose to start your computer in safe mode, the background will be black, and Safe Mode will appear in all four corners of the screen (see Figure 22.2). If your computer doesn't start using safe mode, you can try Windows 2000 Automatic System Recovery.

Figure 22.2 Running Windows 2000 in Safe Mode

Safe mode has a couple of variations. You can select Safe Mode With Networking, which is identical to Safe Mode except that it adds the drivers and services necessary to enable networking to function when you restart your computer. A second variation of Safe Mode is Safe Mode With Command Prompt, which is the same as Safe Mode except when the computer restarts, it displays a command prompt.

Other Advanced Boot Options

The other advanced boot options provide additional troubleshooting avenues that you can use to circumvent a normal boot and allow you to attempt to determine the cause of a booting problem. These options are summarized as follows:

• Enable Boot Logging. This advanced boot option logs the loading and initialization of drivers and services for troubleshooting boot problems. All drivers and services that are loaded and initialized or that are not loaded in a file are logged. The log file, ntbtlog.txt, is located in the windir folder. All three versions of Safe Mode automatically create this boot log file.
• Enable VGA Mode. This advanced boot option starts Windows 2000 with a basic VGA driver.
• Last Known Good Configuration. This advanced boot option starts Windows 2000 using the registry information that Windows 2000 saved at the last logon.
• Directory Services Restore Mode. This advanced boot option allows the restoration of directory services based on Active Directory technology on domain controllers. This option applies only to Windows 2000 Server and not to Windows 2000 Professional.
• Debugging Mode. Selecting this option turns on debugging, an advanced feature that administrators can use to attempt to track down problems in programming code. This advanced boot option applies only to Windows 2000 Server and not to Windows 2000 Professional.
• Boot Normally. This option, although it is listed with the other advanced boot options, allows you to abort the screen of advanced boot options and proceed with a normal boot.

NOTE

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When using the advanced boot options in Windows 2000, logging is enabled with every option except Last Known Good Configuration. The system writes the log file (Ntbtlog.txt) to the systemroot folder. In addition, each option except Last Known Good Configuration loads the default VGA driver.

Using an advanced boot option to boot the system sets the environment variable SAFEBOOT_OPTION to indicate the mode used to boot the system.

Lesson Summary

In this lesson, you learned that the advanced boot options available in Windows 2000 include Safe Mode, Safe Mode With Networking, and Safe Mode With Command Prompt; Enable Boot Logging; Enable VGA Mode; Last Known Good Configuration; Directory Services Restore Mode; and Debugging Mode. These options allow you to attempt to restart your computer when a problem occurs with a normal boot. The Directory Services Restore Mode and Debugging Mode options aren't available for Windows 2000 Professional. The Boot Normally advanced boot option allows you to bypass these options and proceed with a normal boot.