Image Source : Ninja M
When Microsoft first announced Windows 8′s UEFI support and the Secure Boot feature, many appreciated it as a step towards better security. Yes, it does improve the security of our machines by great amounts. It will prevent unsigned software from running in our machine which is really a good thing! But, it comes with a price…
If you are an advanced Windows user…
You might want to divide the hard disk into separate partitions before you use it… You might want to do experiments on your machine… Earlier, we were able to do these things without any fear. But not with Windows 8… I bought my first Windows 8 Laptop on last December. From the day I bought it, I’m facing issues! Once, I partitioned my hard drive. I did it like I did with my old Windows 7 lap. In my old machine, with the partitions divided, I can still use the recovery partition to recover the system (Only if I do the the partitioning in the right way). But I discovered that in Windows 8 machines, dividing partitions might mess up the whole system! I can’t recover anymore! So, be careful when doing advanced operations in Windows 8.
If you are a Linux user…
At first, while others are praising Microsoft, the Linux community spoke against it because it can prevent us from installing Linux on these machines. The Linux community worked with Microsoft to fix this issue and they came up with solutions. Problem solved! Is it? No! Everyone thought they can forget about the issue but the issue is getting worse…
I installed Linux on my new Windows 8 machine. I (and most of the community) know that its hard to boot Linux on these machines. We have to give up secure boot. So, I disabled it and installed Linux. Everything worked ok for nearly a month. Then I started to face battery issues. It’s not giving me the correct value (Im not sure whether its related to our UEFI problems…). I then tried to recover the system with the recovery DVDs and boom… The recovery failed! I tried several times and no matter what I do, it won’t work. I gave the machine to the retailer and they also failed to recover the machine. Then they sent it to HP. Now, HP claim that they have re-installed the whole firmware because it is corrupted? But they are were unable to activate the new system. For almost a month, they are still trying to figure out how to activate the copy of Windows 8 they installed on it. Windows 8 doesn’t give you a key on the bottom of the machine like its predecessors. It have the key inside the machine’s firmware. According to what they say, even HP haven’t received proper instructions from Microsoft on how to install a key! Cool isn’t it? When buying the machine, the retailer told me I can install Linux. We can’t blame them because they are also victims of Windows 8.
More issues…
Not only me… Not only HP… According to recent reports, if you install Linux on some Samsung Windows 8 machines, you can brick the whole machine! It won’t even boot. Everyone blamed Linux. But now, Matthew Garrett have discovered that the issue is not with Linux. Any OS can brick those machines!
Now I think the same thing will happen to me… HP and our retailer will try to make me guilty by saying I bricked the machine by trying to install Linux. But the real problem is not with Linux! I’m not a big kernel developer so I can’t provide a definite answer for this. Sometimes, UEFI might be full of bugs… It might not be ready for us… It might be an issue in the way Windows 8 handle it… I don’t know…
Is there a fix for this?
If you need to solve these issues, you have to disable UEFI from the BIOS. But then you have to completely re-install Windows. In Windows 8 pre-installed machines, this might be an issue. Because the key is in the firmware, I’m not sure whether it will work. So, if you already have a Windows 8 pre-installed machine, you are helpless!
Microsoft wanted to solve one issue by using the UEFI system. But they created many more problems while doing that! Finally, I should say that Windows 8 is only for novice users who just use their machines to check emails, play games and do other office stuff. But for advanced users, Windows 8 is not the right choice! I’m talking about both Windows and Linux users. If you have faced issues like this, please share them with us. If you have solved any of them, then also share what you did as comments! We will try our best to dive deeper into the problem and fix it just like we solved the overheating issue in Linux!
Update : We are now discussing this issue in Google+ : https://plus.google.com/u/0/115473009912008532210/posts/cfyaFhaRXFi
