Re: [tlug] linux installed on lenovo ideapad

[Christian Horn <chorn@example.com>]

Hoi,

On Sat, Oct 26, 2024 at 12:34:09PM +0100, Raymond Wan wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 26, 2024 at 4:00 AM steve <sjs@example.com> wrote:
> >
> > What I'm wondering is if Microsoft is modifying the BIOS as part of their Windows 11 install.

If courious enough, one could
- setup a KVM guest with uefi
- make a copy of the files/nvram (the backend which KVM/qemu
  present in the guest as uefi)
- install windows 11
- and compare the files/nvram at that point

To the least, Windows will add an entry to the uefi boot menu,
i.e. what you see with "efibootmgr".  You might have to get an
idea on where in the files this is, to distinguish this change
from further changes.


> A long time ago, I had read about this in a non-technical article.  I
> wouldn't say that "Microsoft is modifying the BIOS".  It was more like
> the vendor partnered with Microsoft and made changes that ensured
> installing another OS would be difficult or impossible.  I certainly
> wouldn't phrase it so that it sounds like it was Microsoft's fault.  I
> guess the vendor agreed to it as well...maybe get a discount on the
> license, etc.

There was something where hardware vendors would ship systems with
certain data in the bios, which a Windows installation would then
recognize and skip registration.
Chris