Boot Windows Azure into Safe Mode

If I only have access to the Azure web interface (eg: no RDP access) is there any way I can boot a windows Azure VM into safe mode AND remotely access it?

Solution 1:

Without knowing your specific guest OS setup, I can't get tell you for certain or give you an exact step by step, but if you want to change how Windows boots, you want BCDEdit.

You can find an intro guide here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff547251(v=vs.85).aspx

More specific boot options for later versions of Windows (Including Server 2012 and 2008): http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/ff542273(v=vs.85).aspx

Solution 2:

I don't think you can boot Azure VM to safe mode if you don't have RDP access. Even if you have RDP access and boot the VM to safe mode in your RDP session, you may not connect back with the RDP as it is likely disabled in safe mode. Here is a feedback request for this topic, you probably want to vote for it. safemode for azure VM.

If you just want to do something on the VM without RDP access, you can try to connect to the VM with a remote PowerShell session. Here is a guide: Remoting into Azure ARM Virtual Machines using Powershell.

Solution 3:

I know this is late but I thought I'd put this here better late than never! The services required for RDP are disabled in Safe Mode and is thus unsupported for Azure VMs operating Windows. As a workaround, you can copy the OS disk and attach to a Rescue VM, RDP to the Rescue VM, then boot the cloned disk in Nested Virtualization to access the server from the Hyper-V Management console. Then you can put it in safe mode, take it out of safe mode, etc without accessing it directly with RDP. If you have made changes to the server while it is nested, you can then shut down the Hyper-V server and swap the OS disk with the Azure VM.

• Automatic process: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/repair-windows-vm-using-azure-virtual-machine-repair-commands
• Manual process: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/azure/virtual-machines/troubleshoot-vm-by-use-nested-virtualization