It would still be on for most users, so unless malware can affect BIOS options, you'd have complete protection against that. I'm not certain about the implemen

It would still be on for most users, so unless malware can affect BIOS options, you'd have complete protection against that. I'm not certain about the implementation details, but I assume that the OS can somehow figure out if it's booting in safe mode. And I guess Windows 8 just won't boot if you disable it in the BIOS. This would be a bit annoying if you dual-boot and switch frequently, but no big deal. Nobody would loose anything, unless we assume that keeping other OSs from the system is what it's all about. If it's a hard lock-out, we'll get cracked BIOS images pretty soon. Maybe even from the manufacturers ("Not supported, you loose Windows 8 logo compatibility" etc.)… Never mind that it won't be long until the first crack for this protection scheme is out, disabling it in windows – just like every other annoying activation / security thing MS came up with. Again, assuming that this it will really be this restrictive and mandatory.