How to Enable Secure Boot in Windows 10 | Windows 11 is finally officially launched and brings many features that have never been brought by other Windows operating systems. With Windows 11 having been announced and Microsoft revealing the minimum system requirements for the OS, most users on older systems have some doubts as to whether the PC has Secure Boot enabled and whether they have TPM enabled or not.
Although you can always forcibly install Windows 11 without enabling Secure Boot, but Microsoft does not recommend doing so for various reasons. Apart from various reasons why you want to disable or enable Secure Boot, but now starting from Windows 10 you have to enable Secure Boot every time.
Here you can explore everything about how to enable Secure Boot, how to check Secure Boot status on your PC, and how you can enable Secure Boot on your Windows 10 PC to update to Windows 11.
Also read: How to solve the “This PC can’t run Windows 11” error
What is Secure Boot?
To understand Secure Boot, you must first understand the two main components, BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) and UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface). Both are firmware or one could say software which is installed by the processor manufacturer to help you load the operating system on your computer along with a plethora of other functions.
UEFI is more modern than system BIOS, since the former has been around since the 1980s, there’s no doubt there’s scope for improvement there. USPs of UEFI include support for larger hard drives (because BIOS cannot boot OS from hard disks above 2.1 TB), faster boot times, GUI convenience, mouse cursor support (With BIOS you can only navigate using keyboard at the firmware menu level), and of course, better security which includes the Secure Boot mechanism.
Secure Boot’s job is to ensure that only the operating system and verified software can load to help the computer boot up, and deny access in case malware or unverified software tries to load itself before the computer even starts.
To achieve such functionality, the verified software/operating system that needs to be launched at boot time is signed with the public/private key for the UEFI firmware. At boot time, Secure Boot checks the key against UEFI and allows access to the key if it has been “whitelisted” by UEFI. Windows 10 comes with such a certificate for UEFI, which serves as a key to allow it at boot up.
Now that you understand the basics of Secure Boot, let’s learn how to tell if Secure Boot is enabled on your PC or not.
How to check Secure Boot Status
To check the Secure Boot status on your system, do the following:
1. Press the button
Windows+R
together to open a dialog box Run.
2. Type msinfo32 and press enter.
3. This will now open a window System Information. This window shows you all the system details.
4. Look for Secure Boot Status.
5. If the value is set to ON, then Secure Boot is enabled. If the value OFFyou have to enable Secure Boot for Windows 11.
How to Enable Secure Boot from BIOS Setup
In order to be able to update to Windows 11, you must first enable Secure Boot on your Windows 10 PC or laptop. Because this is one of the requirements suggested by Microsoft itself. Immediately, here are the steps on how to activate Secure Boot in Windows 10:
Notes: The shortcut keys listed in this section to access the BIOS Menu are for Dell PCs/laptops. Different manufacturers have different shortcut keys for accessing and navigating menus, please refer to your PC manual or check the manufacturer’s website for specific keys for your PC.
1. To open BIOS setup, turn off your PC and turn it back on. Then, as soon as you see the Boot logo on your screen, press the F12 key on your keyboard. You may see an indicator on the screen when the PC is ready to enter the BIOS Menu.
2. Next, select the option “BIOS Setup” from the screen by navigating from the arrow keys of your keyboard or by using a hotkey if it is displayed on your screen.
3. After that, with the mouse click the option “Secure BootIf your BIOS doesn’t support mouse cursor, navigate to it using arrow keys and press Enter on your keyboard.
4. Then, open the option “Secure Boot Enable” using the mouse or arrow keys on your machine’s keyboard.
5. On screen “Secure Boot Enable“, press the down arrow key to highlight an option “Enabled” then press the button spacebar to select it. You can also use the mouse cursor to select the option “Enabled“.
6. After selecting the option “Enabled“, click the button “Apply” using the mouse or arrow keys, then press the Enter key to confirm the changes.
7. Finally, now use the option “Exit” to exit BIOS setup. Secure Boot option is now enabled on your PC.
After exiting the BIOS setup, your computer will continue the Windows 10 start-up process and you will enable Secure Boot on your PC.
That’s the tutorial on how to activate Windows 10 Secure Boot. I hope this article helped you! Thank you for visiting and don’t forget if you find this article useful, please share it with your friends too.
