Missing UEFI Firmware Tile

gordon99 · 03 Aug 2023

I have a second hand Dell Latitude E5420 laptop that came with Windows 7 Pro. I updated it to Windows 10 Pro a few years ago and changed to UEFI Boot from Legacy BIOS. I am trying to change the Secure Boot State from Unsupported to On. However, the UEFI Firmware Settings Tile, where I understand Secure Boot settings can be altered, seems to be missing.
Is the UEFI Firmware Settings Tile and consequently Secure Boot just not obtainable on account of the age (10 years) of the PC ? Any assistance would be appreciated.

dalchina · 03 Aug 2023

Hi, the relevant tutorial (from the huge searchable Tutorials section - do feel free to have a look...) which I've found for you is

Enable or Disable Secure Boot on Windows 10 PC

This says:

Secure Boot requires a PC with a UEFI firmware chip that meets the UEFI Specifications Version 2.3.1, Errata C or higher, and has Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 installed with UEFI.

Looking at
Specifications | Unified Extensible Firmware Interface Forum
(from the tutorial)
note:
UEFI Specification Version 2.3.1 (Errata D) (released April 2013)
UEFI Specification Version 2.3.1 (Errata C) (released June 2012)
UEFI Specification Version 2.3.1 (Errata B) (released May 2012)
UEFI Specification Version 2.3.1 (Errata A) (released September 2011)
UEFI Specification Version 2.3.1 (released April 2011)

Note this: for Win 8..

..but yours was shipped with Win 7, so no requirement for it to support secure boot.

I suggest it's unlikely it would be supported.
Someone with your model may comment, or feel free to ask on HP's forum.

There is also this thread- you may care to search the comments to see if there's anything relevant.
Let's run Win10 on really really old hardware

gordon99 · 03 Aug 2023

Thank you very much dalchina for your very speedy response to my query. I will study the information in your reply but, from what you, say it does not look promising.

Megahertz · 03 Aug 2023

In some computers, on the UEFI BIOS, you set OS= Windows UEFI to have UEFI boot +Secure boot or you set OS = other + UEFI to have any OS + UEFI boot. It depends on BIOS.

gordon99 · 04 Aug 2023

Thanks Megahertz. I cannot pretend to understand what you are saying but it seems, from the information I received from dalchina, that my PC is not suitable for Secure Boot operation in spite of it being capable of running UEFI boot.

bfunke · 04 Aug 2023

Click the Windows Button to the bottom left of the screen or press the Windows Key.

In the Search Bar, type: msinfo32

Press Enter.

System Information will open, and System Summary should be selected by default.

On the right side of this screen, look for BIOS Mode and Secure Boot State.

If Secure Boot is enabled, the BIOS Mode will show “UEFI,” and Secure Boot state will show “On”
If Secure Boot is not supported it will say that

RickC · 04 Aug 2023

1. Right-click on the Start button and choose Windows PowerShell (Admin), then click the Yes button on the dialog which appears.

2. When the PowerShell console window appears, type or copy/paste Confirm-SecureBootUEFI then press the ENTER/RETURN key.

3. If your device is using UEFI-mode but does not support Secure Boot then you will see the following:

Missing UEFI Firmware Tile-no_secure_boot_support.png

Hope this helps...

gordon99 · 04 Aug 2023

Thanks RickC,
The answer I get is "Variable is currently undefined". I tried to take a screenshot of the Powershell reply but even this seems beyond me.
Regards,
Gordon.

dalchina · 04 Aug 2023

Note: returns 'FALSE' if UEFI and Secure Boot is off.

Simplest option for taking a screenshot:
PrtSc key (assuming your laptop has one)
Then open e.g. Paint (or similar)
CTRL V to paste the screenshot in
Crop as required
Save as a file (png or jpg).

And you could use Snip & Sketch - or numerous other 3rd party screenshot tools.

Paul Black · 04 Aug 2023

Hello @RickC.

Just for information, I have just run Confirm-SecureBootUEFI on a 12 year old Laptop of Non-UEFI-Mode [ I am using MBR-Legacy ] and got the same results as your posted screenshot.