
Building Windows 8: Designing for PCs that boot faster than ever before - cooldeal
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/b8/archive/2012/05/22/designing-for-pcs-that-boot-faster-than-ever-before.aspx?
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DHowett
Why can't they switch to key holds (the likes of which Apple uses)? Hold down
Windows+R ('R'ecovery) during boot to access the menu, no frustrated tapping
required. It seems like a fair compromise solution between "make a bunch of
special incantations before you reboot" and "press buttons in a tiny window
during startup."

I realize that there are some issues that need to be addressed even with this
approach - POST attempting to reset the keyboard repeatedly because a key is
"stuck", for example - but it just seems more elegant than anything requiring
interaction with an already-booted system.

As an example of why booting the OS fully to reboot the OS is bad, malware
could hijack shutdown/settings/shell so that the system never enters the boot
menu, precluding safe mode.

