How can I start Win7 in safe mode without networking when starting a Prcision 5510 for the first time?
I know how to get to the Win7 start-up options: pressing f8 repeatedly at power-on.
But when I select Safe Mode (w/o n/w), I see the following messages after Win7 loads the essential files: "Preparing ... for the first time" followed by "Will continue setup after restarting system".
When the system restarts, I press f8 repeatedly to get the start-up option, and I select Safe Mode again. But that just repeats the "preparing" and "continue setup" sequence followed by restarting the system again.
I don't know what would happen if I allow the system restart to proceed without pressing f8 and selecting a Safe Mode option. I presume that Win7 would start in normal mode, which I do not want.
Is my assumption correct?
Is there a magic handshake that would permit me to start in Safe Mode (w/o n/w, preferably) for the first time?
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FYI, I have two intentions for starting in Safe Mode the first time.
First, I want to avoid any networking. Actually, I believe I achieved that by disabling the WLAN device in the BIOS setup (f2 at power-on).
Second, I want to minimize changes to the bits before I have a chance to create a Recovery Image.
Unfortunately, the latter might require that I enable networking eventually in order to install the Recovery Tool. I'll see if I can work around that. But if I could do that in Safe Mode with networking, I expect that fewer bits would change.
(Precision 5510 ships with a Recovery Image. But it has Win10, not Win7. How dumb is that?! I presume MS imposes that on Dell as part of MS's strategy to push Win10 aggressive.)