Upgrading to Windows 10? Here are the supported paths

Jesse Williams · 20 Mar 2015

I have a BIOS without Secure Boot. How am I going to get it to a UEFI BIOS with Secure Boot? I believe my computer does have a BIOS update. Shall I update the BIOS or wait on more information from Windows 10?

Winuser · 20 Mar 2015

Jesse Williams said:

I have a BIOS without Secure Boot. How am I going to get it to a UEFI BIOS with Secure Boot? I believe my computer does have a BIOS update. Shall I update the BIOS or wait on more information from Windows 10?

I wouldn't mess with the bios unless you have to. You could brick your computer if the update fails.

Jesse Williams · 20 Mar 2015

How do I brick it?

rvbfan · 20 Mar 2015

Bad Bios flash = dead motherboard = bricked computer.

Winuser · 20 Mar 2015

Jesse Williams said:

How do I brick it?

If the update corrupts the bios your computer could be permanently damaged.

rvbfan · 20 Mar 2015

Will be if you don't have a dual bios board. Although I have heard of people that were able to reflash and save the MB.
Not likely though. In other words if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Wynona · 20 Mar 2015

Mark Phelps said:

There was an article I read very recently claiming that even though MS said they would upgrade "unsupported" (i.e., "pirated") machines to Win10, those machines would still remain "unsupported".

Why would they do that?

Anyone's guess ... but my guess is that is because those "unsupported" machines (especially the older Win7 machines) have been happily running for years with their "activation hacks" remaining intact and (most likely) getting Windows updates all the time. When MS upgrades these machines to Win10, don't be surprised if these old "activation hacks" don't work anymore and after an initial "trial period" (my guess would be no more than 30 days), these machines suddenly ALL lock up and don't work anymore -- until the owners cough up money to pay "unlock" fees. This would be a great way to get all of those "pirated" Win7 machines out of circulation.

KABLKOOOOOOOOOOOOOOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! :)

That is a logical thought and makes sense. Also, it might just be that trying to lock all the pirated stuff out would just be too much trouble and require too much programming. So, since pirated systems probably aren't getting updates and such now, they shouldn't get 'em with windows 10.

Wynona · 20 Mar 2015

Jesse Williams said:

I have a BIOS without Secure Boot. How am I going to get it to a UEFI BIOS with Secure Boot? I believe my computer does have a BIOS update. Shall I update the BIOS or wait on more information from Windows 10?

If it ain't broke, Jesse, don't fix it. :) That said, although a BIOS upgrade is scary, it's not really all that hard to do.

Bottom line, though, is that an update of your BIOS will not give you UEFI. You'll still have Legacy BIOS.

So, unless it becomes necessary for a concrete reason, don't bother with the BIOS.

groze · 20 Mar 2015

That is one thing I don't like about dell driver update software program, they include the bios update very risky.

Indianatone · 20 Mar 2015

If you know what you are doing there is nothing scary about updating the bios. Many of the new BIOS Firmware can be updated without a CPU or memory in the motherboard on modern ASUS boards. There is also a recovery mode for corrupted BIOS from overclocking or loading the wrong data. It is not as bad as it once was. If you don't know much about computers you should leave it to someone who does. It is a little like hard disk management. One wrong move creates hours of re-installation of software. If your computer dual boots or is set up for legacy mode you should probably leave it alone.