Dev.SN

Windows 8 Update Erases Grub, Enables Secure Boot

posted by LaminatorX on Wednesday March 26 2014, @10:13AM   
from the It's-a-trap! dept.

deif writes:

A recent Windows 8 update detects other OS installs as a "security problem", erases non-windows bootloaders and enables UEFI Secure Boot, all without user intervention.

From a posting on reddit:

I contacted MS by chat (in Dutch, so of no use to you) and asked them about this. They vehemently denied this was possible at all. Multiple times, in no uncertain terms. Same results were acquired by phone: denial, denial, denial.

I pointed out that it did actually happen, and that it wan't the first time such a thing had happened in the history of MS updates -so "impossible" was BS, to put it shortly.

Then came a chat reply which amounted to "MS updates makes sure W8 functions fine, it does not look at other OS's integrity". This is, in my opinion, a de-facto admission that yes, the update had changed the bootloader back to the W8 version that ignores other OS's, and yes, it had set the UEFI setting back to "secure boot."

• Re:windoze is pants (Score: 1) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 26 2014, @12:17PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 26 2014, @12:17PM (#21577)

  Same AC, I don't really see where I was defending m$, what I was simply stating all along is that if you want microsoft to bend to your will, the only realistic option is to give them money. It's naive to think that any large corporation would implement changes if they didn't make money in the process, all large corporations I've encountered behaves like psychopaths. Personally I think that they will become more and more irrelevant and slowly fade away into oblivion. Once gaming on linux becomes the norm, there will be no incentive for home users to pay for windows either.

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