3 Ways to Fire Up Windows 8 Advanced Boot Options

The boot options that used to be fired up by pressing F8 during the boot has been revamped in Windows 8 to address an issue that’s never been a problem to Windows. Windows 8 boots so quick that there is no longer enough time for anything to interrupt, not even a quick F8 key press. So where is the boot options now? and how to boot into it?

First, it’s now called Advanced boot options, and you can boot into it via these 3 ways below.

#1 – from PC Settings

Best way for a tablet because you don’t need a keyboard to do so.

Bring up Charm Bar (either swipe across the right screen board, or press Win+I key), and click or tap Change PC Settings at the boot of the bar.

Select General from the left panel, and scroll down to the bottom at the right panel, and click Restart now under Advanced start up.

#2 – Shift + Restart

Again, bring up the Charm Bar, click Power once, and press & hold Shift key before clicking on Restart icon.

#3 – from Command Line

The new switch /o in the shutdown command lets you restart your computer going straight to the advanced boot options.

Press Win + R and type the following command, and press Enter.

shutdown /o /r

What’s next?

After you’ve done one of the above, the Windows 8 machine starts to reboot and goes into Advanced options window like below right after.

[Updated on Nov. 3, 2012]

The easiest but not always work way is to Shift + F8 during the boot. The advanced boot options will show up if you are quick and lucky enough.