What is secure boot

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While it's not recommended to disable Secure Boot, you can customize the certificates it uses to authenticate which operating systems are approved on your PC. Visit Insider's Tech Reference library for more stories. Dave Johnson is a technology journalist who writes about consumer tech and how the industry is transforming the speculative world of science fiction into modern-day real life.

Dave grew up in New Jersey before entering the Air Force to operate satellites, teach space operations, and do space launch planning. From time to time, your manufacturer may update the list of trusted hardware, drivers, and operating systems for your PC. To check for updates, go to Windows Update, or check your manufacturer's website. From Windows, hold the Shift key while selecting Restart. If possible, set it to Disabled.

This option is usually in either the Security tab, the Boot tab, or the Authentication tab. Find the Secure Boot setting, and if possible, set it to Enabled. In some cases, you may need to refresh or Remove everything to its original state before you can turn on Secure Boot.

For more info, see How to restore, refresh, or Remove everything. If the above steps don't work, and you still want to use Secure Boot, contact your manufacturer for help. Secure Boot Overview. In order to use it, your PC must meet the following requirements. Step 4: Save the changes and exit the menu.

You can now boot to media that supports Secure Boot and install an operating system. Step 5: After the operating system is installed, you can verify that Secure Boot is enabled by opening msinfo According to the information on the screen, use the arrow key to go to the Secure Boot option. Warning: After disabling Secure Boot and installing other software and hardware, it may be difficult to re-active Secure Boot unless you restore your PC to the factory state.