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Windows 8 Update Erases Grub, Enables Secure Boot

posted by LaminatorX on Wednesday March 26 2014, @10:13AM   Printer-friendly
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."

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday March 26 2014, @03:08PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) on Wednesday March 26 2014, @03:08PM (#21671) Journal

    I guess I have to agree with you on that. I clicked the link primarily to make a post about - uhhh - help me here, I'm getting senile - ARDA? The code in Windows 3.1 that prevented installation on top of anything other than MSDOS.

    When I read your post, I thought for a second or two. Then I scrolled down, and someone mentions that soon there should be lots of complaints on the interwebs complaining of Win8 borking their systems.

    So, I did a Google search - and come up pretty much empty handed.

    [conspiracy theory[ If this Win8 update is so bad - OH WAIT!!! Microsoft and the NSA are probably collaberating to remove all the complaints faster than they can be posted!!!! [/conspiracy theory]

    Ehhhh - As someone else has mentioned, anyone savvy enough to have disabled UEFI, then to install *nix as a dual boot shouldn't be challenged with re-installing Grub.

    Personally, if/when I get a UEFI enabled board, I won't be installing Windows on it anyway. I only use Windows in virtual machines, and I haven't even bothered with that for almost a year now.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 26 2014, @09:40PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 26 2014, @09:40PM (#21856)

    help me here
    AADR (Aaron R. Reynolds) [twimgs.com]

    I'm getting senile
    This may be the only time this week that you out-senile me. 8-)

    -- gewg_