Urgent request - UEFI options etc. for installing Windows

[Sumanji]

Hi,

I'm installing Windows 10 from scratch on a new Alienware Alpha, but I've never dealt with all this UEFI malarkey before.

What options should I use (UEFI vs. Legacy?). Should I enable secureboot?

I basically want to retain the flexibility of booting other things (e.g. Memtest, SteamOS, other Linux distros) and using multiple OSes, so should I just use legacy mode? What sacrifices would I make if I don't go all-in with UEFI?





Cheers,

Su

[edit] Additonal question; will my Windows 10 key still be "recognised" automatically if I don't use UEFI?
[edit2] NVM, I booted into the original Dell Windows install and use a program to retrieve the Windows 10 key - so I should be safe to just nuke that partition now, right?

 

[thenewoc]

You'll need to use gpt drive partitioning and the graphics card needs to have a gop enabled firmware or I think the intel integrated graphics.

The secure boot gives you protection from viruses being able to install their own boot loader.

UEFI and secure boot I think gives a slightly faster boot time.

You can have UEFI and turn secure boot off to install or boot into a non supported os but some modern linux distros now support secure boot either with their install being signed by an appropriate ms certificate or the distro may provide details on how to add their key to the key store the secure boot uses.

So the current way of doing things is to use uefi and secure boot on, when installing Windows and to format the drive to gpt partitioning. If your graphics firmware doesn't support uefi then the install will tell you so at some point.

If you already have the original dell w10 partition that should already be installed with uefi and secure boot so I would use that. You can refresh that if you're booted into the original in order to clean it back up if you're wanting to get back to a cleaner install. The w10 key you retrieved is most likely generic so it's hit and miss to nuke that partition as hardware recognition by ms to confirm your install is activated can't always be relied upon.

If you want to nuke any partitions i strongly recommend you use a drive imaging software to create an image backup of those partitions and save them to an external drive / alternative system.

 

[Sumanji]

Hi,

Thanks for replying! I wanted to install Windows to a different drive; I went with UEFI but secure boot off. Seems to have worked well (didn't need to enter a key or anything), so I had formatted the other HDD and will use as storage.

I feel like I missed a trick by not enabling SecureBoot though - is it possible for me to do that now, even though I installed Win10 with it disabled.

Cheers,

Su

 

[thenewoc]

No worries, easiest way is, try it and see, if it doesn't workout just go back into bios and set it back to off. I think it will work because I think it will have Microsoft's certificate preinstalled in the bios.