The secure boot option of Windows 8 can’t be turned off or adjusted if the operating system on ARM hardware, is ge lwa installed. It is therefore impossible to other operating systems.
In september, there was much commotion about the ‘secure boot’option of Windows 8, the boot process of Windows from the beginning to the end exit, so that rogue code is not already during the booting process can start. To this end, use is made of the secure boot option in the unified extensible firmware interface, the successor of the outdated bios.
The fear was that other operating systems thanks to the option would not be able to boot. The uefi will only accept software with a valid signature and would therefore, other operating systems without a signature can exclude. Microsoft added to the fuss, however; hardware manufacturers would get the possibility to users to have secure boot to disable.
That turns out to only be partly true. In a recently released document with requirements that manufacturers must comply for their devices for Windows 8 certification, the disabling of secure boot is forbidden on ARM-based systems. Open source journalist Glyn Moody began to tumble the document. Want to manufacturers, so ARM hardware with Windows 8 to spend, then they have the secure boot option is required on. Also the modify of secure boot to other operating systems to load is not possible.
On the other hand is the provision of secure boot on non-ARM hardware is just not required. The Software Freedom Law Center says that this is because Microsoft is a very large market share in the pc market. The software giant would have problems obtaining the mededigingsautoriteiten as running other operating systems on x86 hardware is made impossible. On the market for mobile devices owned Microsoft that market share is not, however, and the company running other operating systems, make it impossible.
Incidentally, it is what Microsoft is not allowed to use the secure boot option on x86-hardware automated disabled. Other operating systems may be the option for installation so not to turn off a user will secure boot you have to manually turn off in the set-up screen of the uefi chip.