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BIOS or UEFI? That is the question
Home › Forums › AskWoody support › Windows › Windows 7 › Questions: Windows 7 › BIOS or UEFI? That is the question
- This topic has 23 replies, 12 voices, and was last updated 1 year ago.
Viewing 11 reply threads-
AuthorPosts
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March 1, 2020 at 2:57 pm #2174492
Rhino
AskWoody PlusMy laptop, HP Envy, which I bought in 2015, should have had Win 8 installed when I bought it, but I decided to upgrade to Win 7. I am trying to determine whether it is using BIOS or UEFI. I have searched on-line of course, and it would seem to be simple enough, but…
The first option was to look for BIOS Mode in System Information > System Summary. I did that, but there is no mention of BIOS Mode. There is a BIOS Version/Date which is Insyde F.67, 06-June-16
The next option was:
1″In Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\Windows\Panther, you will see a file named setupact.log.”So I looked at Windows\Panther\ and there is no such file. I searched for it: found two of them. One in Windows\ Setupact.log which was all AudMig…… The other in Windows\System32\sysprep\Panther\IE\Setupact.log to which I was “denied access”.
Does it have to be so difficult?
David
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March 1, 2020 at 4:05 pm #2174519
MrJimPhelps
AskWoody_MVPI can’t say for sure, but if your laptop came with a Windows 8 license, it probably has UEFI.
If you’ve been working on computers for any length of time, you will be able to tell whether it is BIOS or UEFI simply by going into Setup and looking around. In fact, there will probably be an option on one of the screens to allow you to choose between BIOS and UEFI. If you see that option, you definitely have UEFI.
I know you didn’t ask this, but with a Windows 8 license, you could install Windows 8.1 and get about three more years of support from Microsoft (till January 2023). If you install Classic Shell in Windows 8.1, you can configure Windows 8.1 to look and feel exactly like Windows 7. That’s how I have both my Windows 8.1 laptop and my Windows 8.1 VM set up.
Group "L" (Linux Mint)
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March 1, 2020 at 4:31 pm #2174533
Carl
AskWoody PlusIf I were to venture a guess I would say UEFI. In July of 2015, HP released security related updates for HP PCs with UEFI Firmware. This list includes a bunch of HP Envy models that were impacted.
Usually, you can go into the BIOS to determine this. A UEFI GUI (mouse support) generally looks nothing like an old school BIOS interface. Most older motherboards with UEFI support could also be switched to a BIOS compatibility mode. In fact, the computer I’m using does just that. I don’t know how locked down the firmware is on HP’s though.
Another clue is that it originally had Windows 8 installed. That’s when OEMs began switching to UEFI en masse.
Darn – you beat me to it MrJimPhelps.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by
Carl. Reason: Addition
1 user thanked author for this post.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by
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March 1, 2020 at 4:39 pm #2174540
anonymous
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March 1, 2020 at 5:39 pm #2174573
bbearren
AskWoody MVPI know with Dell machines when you ordered the downgrade to Win7 they shipped it as mbr not uefi. Best way to check is in BIOS. Hit either DEL, F2 or F12 key on boot.
Windows 7 can boot UEFI when configured. No need to use MBR.
Also, Microsoft required OEM’s to spec their machines for Secure Boot, and that only comes with UEFI.
Create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates, in case you need to start over!"When you're troubleshooting, start with the simple and proceed to the complex."—M.O. Johns"Experience is what you get when you're looking for something else."—Sir Thomas Robert Deware-
This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by
bbearren.
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March 1, 2020 at 6:12 pm #2174584
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This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by
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March 1, 2020 at 6:19 pm #2174590
Carl
AskWoody PlusWindows 7 supports UEFI (earlier revision), but does not support Secure Boot.
I’m getting senile so I may be off my rocker. If I recall correctly, the OS partition could not be GPT, but had to be configured as MBR (master boot record). I have one older Win 7 machine with an MBR boot drive and a large separate drive array with spinning rust (GPT?).
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March 2, 2020 at 5:30 am #2174794
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March 8, 2020 at 12:08 am #2177968
GoneToPlaid
AskWoody Plus
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March 1, 2020 at 7:12 pm #2174603
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April 6, 2020 at 11:12 am #2223792
rongolini
AskWoody PlusThe Belarc Advisor will give you that information. http://belarc.com free download.
1 user thanked author for this post.
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March 1, 2020 at 7:17 pm #2174605
bbearren
AskWoody MVPI bought a Dell Latitude E5420 in 2011 with Windows 7 Pro configured for BIOS/MBR. It also had firmware for UEFI/GPT. I converted my BIOS/MBR Latitude to UEFI/GPT.
No Windows OS can boot directly from GPT, but it can boot from a small EFI partition into a Windows installed on GPT. And yes there was a period when Dell shipped PC’s and laptops with both BIOS and UEFI firmware. I don’t know that they still do.
My guess is that any OEM PC/laptop that was Windows 8 capable had firmware to support UEFI/GPT and/or BIOS/MBR.
Create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates, in case you need to start over!"When you're troubleshooting, start with the simple and proceed to the complex."—M.O. Johns"Experience is what you get when you're looking for something else."—Sir Thomas Robert Deware -
March 1, 2020 at 8:22 pm #2174645
Rick Corbett
AskWoody_MVPCopy/paste the following one-liner into a PowerShell command window (it doesn’t need to be elevated):
(Select-String 'Detected boot environment' C:WindowsPanthersetupact.log -AllMatches ).line -replace '.*:s+'
Example result:
Hope this helps…
Attachments:
You must be logged in to access attached files.
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March 2, 2020 at 10:12 am #2174998
RetiredGeek
AskWoody MVPRick,
Your one liner returned an error on my machine.
Here’s a PS script that will hopefully return the correct values (I’ve tested it on 3 different machines.
Get-PCFirmwareStatus.zip: Get-PCFirmwareStatus
Unzip the file and run the program in powershell, ex:
[d:path]Get-PCFirmwareStatus.psi
Results:
The program also does some error checking and will provide dialog boxes for that also.HTH :cheers:
Attachments:
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March 2, 2020 at 11:22 am #2175046
Rick Corbett
AskWoody_MVPHi RG – It appears that MS are not consistent with the ‘usual’ stored location of the C:\Windows\Panther\setupact.log file hence the error.
I notice others report the same… so the QAD method I used worked for me on several devices (both Win 10 – see previous post – and Win 7 – see below)… but possibly more through luck than judgement.
I suspect it may be to do with the difference between a clean OS install and an upgraded install… but I don’t have any upgraded devices at all to test. (I always ‘clean install’.)
Your method is much, much better – I saw it somewhere but cannot remember where.
However, the GetFirmwareType API call only works for Windows 8 and above. This is still be an issue for some, like the OP who wanted to determine the firmware type of a Win 7 laptop.
I saw a third method on MSDN which just outright failed on a Legacy BIOS… but I ignored that as too clunky (even for me… 🙂 ).
Hmm… it looks like the MSDN link has fallen foul of MS’ absolute determination to remove any technical info that might help tinkerers – I mean, developers.
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March 1, 2020 at 9:56 pm #2174682
Rick Corbett
AskWoody_MVPGah! The forum software removed the backslashes in the PowerShell one-liner. Here it is again:
(Select-String 'Detected boot environment' C:\Windows\Panther\setupact.log -AllMatches ).line -replace '.*:\s+'
1 user thanked author for this post.
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March 2, 2020 at 1:04 pm #2175123
RetiredGeek
AskWoody MVPRick,
Those pesky back slashes! That fixed the problem.
I went in and looked at the file to see what was there and here’s another way:
PS> (Select-String 'Firmware Type' C:\Windows\Panther\setupact.log ).line.trim() | Select -First 1 Firmware type: UEFI
BTW: your original now returns just EFI on my machine.
HTH 😎
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March 2, 2020 at 1:15 am #2174745
Paul T
AskWoody MVP-
March 2, 2020 at 5:33 am #2174796
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March 2, 2020 at 6:30 am #2174813
steeviebops
AskWoody Lounger-
March 2, 2020 at 10:34 am #2175009
Ascaris
AskWoody_MVPYou can also check the partition style of your boot drive in Diskpart as Windows only allows BIOS to boot from MBR and UEFI to boot from GPT. So that would be a dead giveaway.
It’s my understanding that even though some Windows 7 machines shipped with UEFI, they were still typically set up with MBR/legacy boot. UEFI systems usually have the capability of booting from MBR setups.
When 8 came out, I believe that MS required PC OEMs to use secure boot, which in turn requires a GPT boot.
Group "L" (KDE Neon Linux 5.21.4 User Edition)
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March 2, 2020 at 11:10 am #2175039
Paul T
AskWoody MVPUsing BCDEDIT should work.
- Open a Command Prompt as admin.
- Type: bcdedit
Look for the the “path” information.
UEFI = winload.efi
BIOS = winload.execheers, Paul
1 user thanked author for this post.
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March 2, 2020 at 11:34 am #2175059
Rick Corbett
AskWoody_MVP
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March 2, 2020 at 12:19 pm #2175091
Rhino
AskWoody PlusOMG what a can of worms I’ve opened up. Firstly, thanks for the many responses, I’ve worked my way through them one by one. Finally the BCDEDIT suggested by Paul T brought up:
“Path : Windows\System32\winload.exe. Thank you Paul. Now I shall go and lie down in a darkened room with a cold beer. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have the energy (foolhardiness?) to dig deeper into this dual boot business.
David
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