Please note that this is only a issue for UEFI systems, if you plan to upgrade an existing system with BIOS you won’t be affected by it.

The UEFI secure boot protocol is the foundation of an architecturally neutral approach to platform and firmware security. Based on the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) process to validate firmware images before they are allowed to execute, secure boot helps reduce the risk of boot loader attacks. Microsoft relies on this protocol in Windows 8 to improve platform security for our customers.

Microsoft today responded to those claims in another article on the Building Windows 8 blog. OEM systems shipping with Windows 8 will have secure boot enabled by default to only load verified operating system loaders during boot time. This prevents malware from switching the boot loader, but also other operating systems that are not signed from being loaded.

While Secure Boot is enabled by default, it is up to the OEM to add controls to UEFI to allow the user to disable the feature. The Samsung tablet that Microsoft gave away on the BUILD conference for instance came with an option to disable Secure Boot on the device.

Microsoft employee Tony Mangefeste notes that “OEMs are free to choose how to enable this support”, which means that OEM could make the decision to not implement the override in the UEFI configuration. This would then mean that customers would not be able to boot third party operating systems from the OEM machine.

The only option that consumers have at this point is to find out about this in advance before making a purchase. I for one would never buy a system that prevents me from loading a third party OS.

Your options to install Windows 8 are:

• Install Windows 8 on a PC with BIOS.
• Build your own new PC, or have it build for you.
• Verify that the OEM PC with Windows 8 is offering an option to disable Secure Boot before purchasing it.
• Hope that someone will come up with a hacked firmware to disable Secure Boot

What’s your take on Secure Boot? I personally think that it improves security, and do not think that it is an issue as long as all OEMs add the means to disable the feature. Let me know in the comments.

For mobile devices like laptops though, and situations where the computer is shut down and restarted again multiple times throughout the day, the new Windows 8 Hybrid Boot technology could have a huge impact.

Microsoft is very thorough when it comes to improving the operating system. The company always starts with data of the current use. When it comes to Windows 7, Microsoft noticed that 45% of laptop users and 57% of desktop users where shutting down (and possibly restarting) the operating system. The reason for shutting down the PC, instead of putting it in sleep or hibernation, has several reasons. A core reason is that some users want their PCs completely off, while others want to preserve as much batter or energy as they can.

The core difference between the boot process in Windows 7 and Windows 8 is this. Microsoft uses hibernation to save the kernel session. Think of it as partial hibernation. The core gain is a speed increase of 30% to 70% on all systems, as “reading the hiberfile in and reinitializing drivers is much faster”. But that’s not the only reason why it is faster. Microsoft has added multi-phase resume capabilities to the operating system which uses all cpu cores in multi-core systems in parallel to split the work load.

Here is a video demonstrating the fast startup feature of the Windows 8 operating system.

Microsoft notes that the demonstration above used a laptop with an UEFI BIOS. This speeds up the POST significantly.

One thing you’ll notice in the video was how fast the POST handoff to Windows occurred. Systems that are built using Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) are more likely to achieve very fast pre-boot times when compared to those with traditional BIOS. This isn’t because UEFI is inherently faster, but because UEFI writers starting from scratch are more able to optimize their implementation rather than building upon a BIOS implementation that may be many years old. The good news is that most system and motherboard manufacturers have begun to implement UEFI, so these kinds of fast startup times will be more prevalent for new systems.

Systems with traditional platter based hard drives and the faster solid state drives will benefit from the faster startup mode. Additional information about fast boot times in Windows 8 are available at the Building Windows 8 blog.

Support will be added to Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 and is already available for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and first motherboards supporting UEFI are already available on the market (MSI P35 Neo3). One of the main differences between BIOS and UEFI is the way applications are coded. Assembler was used if functions or applications had to be coded for the BIOS while a higher level language code will be used to program the UEFI.

The memory footprint is about 10 times smaller as well. The main benefits for customers are a better presentation and (probably) motherboards that are more stable. When will the transition be complete ? Insiders suggest that it might take between two or three years.

The UEFI specification defines a new model for the interface between personal-computer operating systems and platform firmware. The interface consists of data tables that contain platform-related information, plus boot and runtime service calls that are available to the operating system and its loader. Together, these provide a standard environment for booting an operating system and running pre-boot applications.