How do I boot my MacBook Air running Lion in safe mode? I follow the instructions in http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1455 to boot in Safe Mode, but it appears something different happens with Lion.  After holding the shift key when hearing the startup tone, the icons for the two accounts I have configured come up as usual.  If I hold the shift key after logging in, the screen stays grey and a status bar appears with a "sunburst" waiting animation.  (I don't know what the canonical name for that is.)  After the status bar fills, the waiting animation continues and then my MBA reboots.

How do I boot my MacBook Air (running Mac OS X 10.7.1) in Safe Mode?
In my 2011 MacBook Air running Lion, when I select Restart... from the  menu, if I then hold the shift key through the restart process, the boot process is distinctly different than a normal reboot. There is a progress bar across the bottom of the screen, and then I am deposited at the login window, despite normally automatically logging in. I suspect that a Safe Boot has indeed been performed. The difference between this an Safe Boot in previous versions is that no "Safe Mode" text appears on the login screen for me.