No changes are saved in Safe Mode?

[Justin1201]

I've run into this problem a few times now: I've had Vista / WIndows 7 machines that blue screen on boot and can only be loaded in Safe Mode. I go to troubleshoot the problem by disabling services / drivers / startup programs but upon reboot none of my changes have been saved! I go back into safe mode and everything is re-enabled. It does this regardless of if I use MSConfig, services.msc, autoruns, etc. In fact, Safe Mode acts like it's forgotten EVERYTHING about the last boot, including network passwords, my USB mouse, etc.

I would have thought this was a fluke if it was just one system, but I've now encountered three with this behavior. Two were Vista x32, one was 7 x64. I've run security settings sweeps that supposedly fix security rights issues thinking that I may just not have permission to write registry values or something, but that didn't help. I've tried creating new registry keys in the "Run" area just for kicks and I can, so I'm baffled.

Any idea what's going on??!

 

[ATTech]

Sounds like some malicious software is taking advantage of Windows System Restore.

 

[Justin1201]

Hmmmm... wouldn't I see some evidence of System Restore being run? The computer appears to boot normally before it crashes and I'm certainly not seeing any system restore stuff happening in safe mode...

 

[ATTech]

Hmmmm... wouldn't I see some evidence of System Restore being run? The computer appears to boot normally before it crashes and I'm certainly not seeing any system restore stuff happening in safe mode...

Not necessarily. Try disabling system restore, changing the settings and rebooting. Keep in mind, disabling it will delete all previous restore points. I would also suggest scanning for rootkits.