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I just ordered my first new PC is a while, which will come with Windows 8. I will wait until deciding weather to Downgrade to Win 7. However, I think I should immediately disable the Secure Boot feature, simply from the risk of bricking the PC.

Secure boot is supposed to protect the system, but the way I see it, is that if something goes wrong and some hardware or the hard drive fails, it will leave the system in a completely useless state. Even if I make recovery disks, since secure boot blocks use of burned media, it will most likely fail, and I cannot use a Linux boot disk to troubleshoot.

From everything I have read, secure boot's supposed security benefits are insignificant compared to always present threat of a completely dead PC. From that, I think the first thing I should do it disable secure boot to remove that possibility. Is there any real reason why I shouldn't?

Michael Elkin
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  • No. When/if the machine is "bricked" then you disable secrureboot, otherwise it provides protection against your machine getting a boot sector virus. Finally, what does this have to do with programming? – Elliott Frisch Aug 28 '14 at 16:38
  • As I understand it, to disable secure boot you need to enter the UEFI setup from within Windows 8, so if Windows 8 is gone, so is the box. I have also read about cases where a UEFI system was completely bricked when attempting to boot from an unsupported source? – Michael Elkin Aug 28 '14 at 16:45
  • No. You should be able to disable it in [BIOS](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn481258.aspx). – Elliott Frisch Aug 28 '14 at 16:46
  • Nothing to do with programming, just a generic system question. Still a noob on SO as far as finding locations. Can mod please move this question to a more appropriate location? – Michael Elkin Aug 28 '14 at 16:46
  • Even in that link, to enter the BIOS setup you need to restart from Windows 8, so if I ever need to change it I won't be able to without functional Windows? When I get the box, I will see if I cane enter the BIOS without windows to put this to rest. – Michael Elkin Aug 28 '14 at 16:56
  • No. You don't. You need to boot the computer to enter the bios. If you're already in Windows you need to reboot. Because once an OS is running you can't open the BIOS without rebooting. – Elliott Frisch Aug 28 '14 at 16:57

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Elliott is right. Even with secure boot enabled the system does not get in the way of getting into BIOS before loading windows so I can always disable secure boot if needed.

Michael Elkin
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