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Comment by CSDude | Hacker News Reader

If you disable UEFI, you need to install your system again, and you cannot use your old license to install it, at least in Win8. So you either buy another Win8. So disabling UEFI is not an option, for dual boot.

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The parent poster said, disable UEFI Secure Boot, not UEFI, in which case Windows will continue to boot normally.

Holy cow, how are we just now finding out about this? So Microsoft is forcing you to buy yet another Windows license, after you already paid for the one included with the laptop, if you want to dual-boot?

This should been a scandal when Windows 8 launched.

Not really. Installing Linux on a computer running UEFI is perfectly possible. It's just really hard. I'm typing this on just such a machine and it involved activating BIOS emulation and then when the Ubuntu purple loading disk screen came I needed to do a magic key-combo and set some options I don't remember. Then I needed to run bootrepair and instruct it to make Ubuntu UEFI bootable and finally I could turn off BIOS emulation.

It's hard as fucking hell.

My last two systems (desktops, I don't even have a working notebook right now, waiting for Broadwell) used Asrock and ASUS boards with EFI implementations that worked pretty well out of the box under Linux. One runs Suse 13.1, the other runs Arch. They both have their bugs - the Asrock system wipes the EFI boot table every firmware update, and the ASUS one can only have one entry in the EFI boot table, and neither has a working EFI shell - but I did my research to know they worked.

Anecdotal, but: I have linux installed on two machines with UEFI, and neither was much harder than a BIOS install. An extra step or two, but it didn't require more than a couple additional minutes.

Sounds like the Ubuntu installer might just suck for UEFI.

I installed Debian 7.4 on a Dell XPS 13 using a live hybrid ISO (`debian-live-7.4-amd64-standard+nonfree.iso`) two days ago. After enabling UEFI and adding the USB stick as a boot device, I had to do nothing out of the normal to get it to work. It was incredibly painless.

The linux experience now extends before installation ;)

It was, but the number of people spreading misinformation (like the top of this thread, or the article's author just a few days ago) was huge, and since nobody had firsthand experience with it, most people simply ignored.

Any problem you have with your computer now, you are required to buy another Windows copy.

I'm confused, could you please elaborate on this? I successfully dual-booted a second-hand (wiped hdd, etc) Lenovo Carbon X1 w/ Ubuntu and Win8 from MSDN media. It picked up the pre-loaded Win8 license without issue.

I believe this is a myth. The product key is stored using ACPI, not UEFI. Even MS mentioned that you can switch to BIOS mode in order to install 32-bit Win8.

Since when can you not use a windows license more then once.

The license key gets tied to certain system internals upon first use, and is checked against the existence and value of the same internals in subsequent checks. Apparently, toggling UEFI (and/or Secure Boot) modifies one such internal.

EDIT: license -> license key

And then you call Microsoft on the phone and they issue a reactivation, or whatever they call it, and everything is fine. Unless this works differently with OEM versions of Windows (different, more obtuse support people?) than it does with retail, I can't imagine it's actually a problem.

Most people don't realize this.

Don't confuse the technology with the legalities. "The license" is a contractual right that you have legally purchased. If Microsoft's piracy-detecting hair-triggers are firing in a situation where you still have a license per the contact - oem licenses are usually "on this PC" or the like, so toggling UEFI alone shouldn't breach the terms - that should be their problem. You're entitled to your license.

> at least in Win8. So you either buy another Win8. So disabling UEFI is not an option, for dual boot.

I don't use Windows however that would be the point where I'd just pirate it, if I buy a single user license for a piece of hardware I expect to be able to run it on that hardware.

Fortunately my life and work (web dev) is better on Linux than Windows.

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