BIOS or UEFI: how to find out what a computer supports

For a long time, Windows users did not know about such a concept as UEFI - Unified Extensible Firmware Interface, which is a kind of BIOS replacement for setting up hardware, loading and starting the operating system. Consider in more detail what it is, what are its advantages, how to find out if BIOS or UEFI supports your computer.

What is UEFI?

The UEFI or Unified Extensible Firmware Interface was designed to overcome a number of limitations that the user encountered in the standard BIOS. It was first introduced by Intel as the Intel Boot Initiative, which was subsequently changed to EFI. Further development began in the Unified EFI Forum, where the current name of the interface came from.

UEFI comes with a boot manager, which eliminates the need for a separate bootloader. In addition, it provides faster loading of a computer or laptop. Thanks to the modular design, it presents the ability to conduct remote diagnostics and repairs even without an installed operating system, including support for connecting to the Internet. In addition to all this, support for hard drives and arrays larger than two terabytes has also been added to UEFI.

Before we figure out how to find out the BIOS or UEFI on a computer, we’ll take a look at the main advantages of the new interface over the classic BIOS. Most modern PCs and laptops on Windows come with UEFI support.

Which is better, BIOS or UEFI? How to find out?

Having understood what UEFI is, you can see and understand its main advantages over Bios. The main advantages of the new interface include the following:

1. Faster initialization of your equipment.
2. Provides support for hard drives and partitions of more than two terabytes.
3. It offers secure boot, which means that digital signatures are available for everything that boots before the operating system boots. This provides your system with an additional layer of protection against the launch of malicious software.
4. The operating system starts much faster if it was installed in the UEFI boot mode, and not in the standard BIOS bootloader - Legacy Boot mode.

Now let's take a closer look at how to find out what your device supports.

How to find out BIOS or UEFI supported by computer?

You can check which interface is in your device in several ways directly in the operating system:

1. In System Information.
2. In the setupact.log file.

You can start system information from the command line by typing msinfo32. In the section "BIOS Mode" it will be indicated which version of the interface you have.

For the second verification method, you will have to follow these steps:

1. On "Drive C" in the directory we find a folder called Panther.
2. We find the file setupact.log, which opens in a regular notepad.
3. We start the "Search" in a text editor and look for the entry Detected Boot Environment.
4. In the Detected Boot Environment line found, you will notice the word BIOS or UEFI.

You can also find out if there is UEFI in the BIOS, as a rule, when you start your computer by going to the BIOS and looking at the boot mode: Legacy or UEFI.

It is important to note and know that as a result of booting via UEFI, your hard disk will have a partition table in the GPT standard.

If you decide to reinstall the operating system that was previously loaded in Legacy mode, then installing in UEFI, you will have to format the entire hard disk and convert it from MBR to GPT format. Should you do this, you decide after you find out the BIOS or UEFI is supported by your computer.