UEFI Firmware SettingsUnified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is the method of booting that was introduced with Windows 8, and which replaced
Basic Input Output System (BIOS) booting, which was used by all previous versions of Windows.
UEFI has a number of advantages over BIOS with regard to security, the most noticeable being ...
- The introduction of Safeboot ... which only allows "recognised" Operating Systems to boot.
- The introduction of Early Launch Anti-Malware (ELAM) ... which loads your Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware drivers before any others.
For the most part, UEFI settings can and should be left alone, since if you don't know what you're doing you can easily do damage, however, there may be times when
some people may need to access and change their UEFI settings, in which case the
UEFI Firmware Settings option is the one to use.
Below I've named a few occasions on which you might want to access or change settings ...
- To change the boot order of your computer, so that it boots first from detachable media ... useful if you're troubleshooting boot problems.
- To switch off Safeboot ... necessary if you wish to dual-boot, and use a secondary OS that is not recognised by UEFI.
- To access hardware information ... such as processor temperatures.
- To change hardware settings ... such as to allow overclocking.
Once you have clicked on
UEFI Firmware Settings you will be prompted to restart your computer, so click on
Restart to boot into the UEFI menu.
Please note ... there is no common interface for UEFI, and the one you are faced with will depend on the manufacturer and model of your computer. For this reason it is not possible for me to give further details, though many will be very similar in structure to earlier BIOS interfaces (for those of you who are familiar with them).