How to Disable Secure Boot in Windows 10 (Easy Way)

June 11, 2021

As the name implies, secure boot is designed to protect the boot process when the computer starts. It is mostly found on newer computers with UEFI firmware. Secure boot is designed to prevent the loading of unsigned UEFI boot loaders and drivers during the boot process.

Contents

What is Secure Boot?

If someone tries to steal your data while you are away, this will reduce the chance of unauthorized access to your device. However, Secure Boot has also encountered some backlashes as it prevents users from doing useful things on their computers. For example, it prevents you from are running two operating systems at the same time. The good news is if do not need this feature, then you can simply turn it off.

How Secure Boot Works?

When the PC is turned on, a code execution process begins to set up the processor, memory, and peripherals in preparation for starting the operating system. During deployment, secure boot verifies the firmware code signatures present on hardware peripherals (such as memory). During the startup process, Secure Boot looks for the embedded sign in the firmware module.

How Secure Boot Secures Your PC’s Boot Process?

Secure boot is more than just making Windows more difficult to boot. Enabling secure boot provides real security advantages, and users can benefit from it. The traditional BIOS loads any software. When your computer starts, it will look for it. The hardware devices will try to boot from them according to the boot sequence you configured.

An ordinary PC will usually find and load the Windows boot loader, and it will continue to load the entire Windows operating system. If you are using Linux, the BIOS will find and load the GRUB boot loader used by most Linux distributions.

However, malware such as rootkits can replace your boot loader. The rootkit can boot your normal operating system without displaying any errors, and it is completely invisible and undetectable on your system. The BIOS doesn’t know the difference between malware and a reliable boot loader; it just rips off what it finds.

But the safe boot should prevent this. UEFI will check the boot loader before booting and make sure it is signed by Microsoft. If a rootkit or other malware replaces or corrupts your boot loader, UEFI wins. Prevent malicious software from entering the boot process and hide your operating system.

If the signature matches the signature library in Secure Boot, the node can work. Secure boot can be called a secure gateway code with valid credentials can pass through the security gate and be executed. Codes that access the data incorrectly or do not have access to the data will definitely be rejected.

Read: What is OEM Windows? Difference Between Retail vs. OEM Version

How to Enable Secure Boot?

To turn on secure boot, your laptop should meet the subsequent requirements:

If your current operating system was installed when Secure Boot was disabled, then secure boot won’t work. Secure Boot should be enabled before the OS was installed,
Secure Boot need the latest version of UEFI.
Secure Boot works on Windows 8.0 or higher.
On some machines, you may need to set a machine password to turn on the necessary firmware options. Now let us see how to enable secure boot.

Please follow the instructions below

First, pay attention to the brand and model of the device. Many manufacturers update UEFI support for their devices and use firmware updates to update system configuration menu options.
Therefore, please consider updating to the latest version. Open the system in System Preferences and use the manufacturer’s method to access System Preferences. Usually, F10 on HP devices and F2 on Dell devices.
Browse the menu and select UEFI as the boot mode. Many menus provide UEFI and traditional options; other menus may provide UEFI and BIOS. Some devices may provide three options; B. Native UEFI, hybrid UEFI (or UEFI + CSM), and traditional. Either way, please choose your own UEFI or UEFI. You can also choose to disable the old boot method, which is recommended.
Next, go to the safe boot option and enable it. On some devices, after enabling UEFI, you must restart and return to the settings menu to enable secure boot.
It is recommended (but not required) to enable virtualization and TPM support options to enable other security features used by Windows. These settings are required for early activation of anti-malware, metered activation, device protection, credential protection, and Bit Locker.
Save changes and exit the menu. You can now boot and install the operating system from media that supports it. Optical media, USB storage devices, or Lite Touch media for Windows installation can all be used. Windows uses GPT partitions instead of MBR to partition memory.
7-After installing the operating system, if the Confirm-SecureBootUEFI cmdlet returns true, you can ensure that Secure Boot is enabled in PowerShell. You can also open msinfo32. Exe and make sure that the safe boot state setting is enabled.

Read: How Old is My Computer? 5 Ways to Find Out