UEFI vs Legacy Boot

UEFI and Legacy Boot are two different ways of booting a computer. Most PCs and laptops released after 2007 have UEFI installed. UEFI stands for Unified Extendable Firmware Interface and was designed to replace BIOS (Legacy Boot).

A major difference between UEFI and Legacy Boot is Secure Boot. This is a feature of UEFI that prevents loading an operating system not signed by the manufacturer’s key. AIMS desktop is not signed by this key and so Secure Boot must be disabled before AIMS Desktop can be installed.

Secure Boot is managed by the UEFI settings. From Windows 10, it can be disabled by going to Settings -> Updates & security -> Recovery and selecting Restart now. This restart the PC into a recovery mode with various options. Select Troubleshoot -> Advanced options -> UEFI Firmware Settings -> Restart. This will boot into the UEFI Settings, where Secure Boot can be disabled. The exact location of the option differs between manufacturers, but it is generally found in the Boot section.

From Linux machines, there is usually either a Grub menu entry or a keyboard shortcut that can be pressed while the PC is booting that will access the UEFI Settings.