What You Need to Know About Using UEFI Instead of the BIOS

What You Need to Know About Using UEFI Instead of the BIOS

New Windows 8 PCs don’t include the traditional BIOS. They use UEFI firmware instead, just as Macs have for years. How you go about doing common system tasks has changed.

If you’re interested in why UEFI is replacing the BIOS, take a look at our overview of UEFI and how it’s different from the traditional BIOS.

You’ll Need to Access These Options From Within Windows

Rather than have modern PCs wait several seconds for a key press and delay their speedy boot process, you’ll have to access aboot options menu after booting into Windows.

To access this menu, open the Settings charm — either swipe in from the right and tap Settings or press Windows Key + I. Click the Power option under the Settings charm, press and hold the Shift key, and click Restart. Your computer will reboot into the boot options menu.

Access Low-Level UEFI Settings

To access the UEFI Firmware Settings, which are the closest thing available to the typical BIOS setup screen, click the Troubleshoot tile, select Advanced Options, and select UEFI Firmware Settings.

Click the Restart option afterwards and your computer will reboot into its UEFI firmware settings screen.

You’ll find different options here on different computers. For example, only a few options are available on Microsoft’s Surface Pro PC, but many more options will likely be available on traditional desktop PCs.

UEFI applies to new computers. You won’t see the UEFI Firmware Settings option here if you installed Windows 8 on an older computer that came with a BIOS instead of UEFI — you’ll just have to access the BIOS in the same way you always have.

Note that this boot menu option option may not be present on all UEFI PCs. On some UEFI PCs, you may have to access the UEFI settings screen in a different way — check your PC’s documentation for instructions if you don’t see the button here.

Disable Secure Boot

The UEFI settings screen allows you todisable Secure Boot, a useful security feature that prevents malware from hijacking Windows or another installed operating system. However, it can also prevent other operating systems — including Linux distributions and older versions of Windows like Windows 7 — from booting and installing.

You can disable Secure Boot from the UEFI settings screen on any Windows 8 PC. You’ll be giving up the security advantages Secure Boot offers, but you’ll gain the ability to boot any operating system you like.

Boot From Removable Media

To boot your computer from removable media — for example, to boot a Linux live USB drive — you’ll need to access the boot options screen. Select the Boot Device option and choose the device you want to boot from. Depending on the hardware your computer has, you’ll see a variety of options like USB drive, CD/DVD drive, SD card, network boot, and so on.

Legacy BIOS Mode

Many computers with UEFI firmware will allow you to enable a legacy BIOS compatibility mode. In this mode, the UEFI firmware functions as a standard BIOS instead of UEFI firmware. This can help improve compatibility with older operating systems that weren’t designed with UEFI in mind — Windows 7, for example.

If your PC has this option, you’ll find it in the UEFI settings screen. You should only enable this if necessary.

Change the System Time

The BIOS has generally included a built-in clock that displays the time and allowed users to change it from the BIOS settings screen. PCs with UEFI still contain hardware clocks that work the same way, but may not give you an option to control this in the UEFI settings screen. This doesn’t really matter — change the time in your operating system and it will change the system clock time, too.

Access Hardware Information

Your UEFI settings screen may or may not offer the ability to view information about the hardware inside your computer and its temperatures. If it doesn’t, this doesn’t really matter — you can always view this information with a system information tool in Windows, such asSpeccy.

Change Hardware Settings

The BIOS has traditionally offered a variety of settings for tweaking system hardware —overclocking your CPU by changing its multipliers and voltage settings, tweaking your RAM timings, configuring your video memory, and modifying other hardware-related settings. These options may or may not be present in your hardware’s UEFI firmware. For example, on tablets, convertibles, and laptops, you may not find any of these settings. On desktop motherboards designed for tweakers, you should hopefully find these settings in your UEFI settings screen.

---

While the methods of accessing the UEFI settings screen and booting from removable devices are both different, not much else has changed. Just as the BIOSes included with typical laptops offered fewer options than the BIOSes include with motherboards intended for enthusiasts, the UEFI firmware settings screens on tablets and convertibles offer fewer options than those on UEFI-enabled desktops.

How to Make the Windows Desktop Work Well on High-DPI Displays and Fix Blurry Fonts

How to Make the Windows Desktop Work Well on High-DPI Displays and Fix Blurry Fonts

After Windows users have watched smartphones, tablets, and even Mac laptops get high-density displays, they’re finally arriving on new Windows laptops. But be careful what you wish for — many desktop apps have problems on high-DPI displays.

Windows has had some support for DPI scaling, but few desktop programs took advantage of it. Now, the Windows desktop has a teething problem — just as it did when Microsoft originally instituted UAC.

Upgrade to Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 offers much improved display scaling for high-density displays. If you’re using Windows 8, the free updrade to Windows 8.1 is a no-brainer. If you’re still using Windows 7 — well, you shouldn’t use Windows 7 on a high-density display. New laptops with high-density displays will come with Windows 8.1 — stick with Windows 8.1 and don’t try downgrading them. Windows 8.1 can be configured to work much more nicely on a desktop system and has much better support for high-DPI displays.

Windows 8.1 automatically chooses the correct display scaling settings for each display based on its pixel density and resolution. You can also have independent scaling settings for each display — so if you plug in an external monitor, Windows will automatically choose the correct scaling level. Previous versions of Windows would force the same scaling setting on each connected monitor.

Control System-Wide Display Scaling

If your laptop, convertible, or tablet came with a high-density display, Windows 8.1 will automatically choose an appropriate scaling setting for it. However, you may still want to modify the scaling setting if you’d like elements on your screen to appear smaller or larger.

To access this setting, right-click the Windows desktop background and select Screen resolution. Click the “Make text and other items larger or smaller” link in the Screen resolution window and you’ll be able to set a custom scaling level for your display.

Unlike on previous versions of Windows, you shouldn’t have to log out and log back in after changing this setting — your change will take effect immediately.

Fix Blurry Fonts in Specific Applications

Many third-party desktop applications have blurry fonts when scaling is used. Windows 8.1 enables DPI scaling for all desktop apps, and ones that aren’t high-DPI aware will have blurry or fuzzy text, especially when they’re blown up to 200%.

Theoretically, this applies only to “older” applications that aren’t aware of DPI scaling. In practice, this problem applies to many extremely popular desktop applications like Google Chrome and Steam.

To fix this problem, you can disable display scaling for specific apps. To do so, right-click the desktop application’s shortcut and select Properties. If the application is on the taskbar, right-click the taskbar icon, right-click the application’s name, and select Properties.

Click the Compatibility tab and click the “Disable display scaling on high DPI settings” checkbox. After you do, close the application and re-open it.

Fonts will no longer appear blurry in the application, but graphical elements will likely be much smaller. This is a trade-off you’ll have to make. Depending on the program, you may be able to enlarge fonts and other graphical elements in its preferences window to make them appear larger and compensate for the loss of proper scaling,

You could also just disable DPI scaling system-wide by selecting 100% scaling in the control panel screen above. If you did this, everything would appear smaller. Whether this is acceptable depends on how pixel-dense your screen is and how good your eyesight is.

Fix Google Chrome

As of version 31 on Windows 8.1, Chrome is currently very broken on high-DPI displays. Hopefully, you’re reading this some time in the future and Chrome has been updated to fix all these problems. If it hasn’t, here’s how we fixed these problems in Chrome 31.

First, go into the Chrome shortcut’s properties window and enable the Disable display scaling on high DPI settings option.

Restart Chrome and everything will appear sharp, but very tiny. This isn’t good enough. Type chrome://flags into Chrome’s location bar and press Enter to access the hidden Flags page.

Scroll down to locate the Touch Optimized UI setting, set it to Enabled, and then relaunch Chrome. (There’s also a HiDPI Support setting in the Flags list — ignore it for now, as it seems to result in many graphical glitches in Chrome’s interface.)

Next, open Chrome’s Settings page. Scroll down and click the Show advanced settings option, then scroll down to the Web content section

Set the default page zoom level to either 150% or 125%, depending on your screen resolution and eyesight. This will make everything on web pages appear larger — not just text, but images and other elements.

Chrome should now be fixed. Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox both appear to work okay without any tweaking needed, so you could also try one of them.

Remember that you can adjust font sizes on each individual web page. To do so, hold Ctrl and press the + or – keys, hold Ctrl and scroll the mouse wheel up or down, or use the zoom options in Chrome’s menu.

---

Windows 8-style apps actually scale nicely to high-density displays and offer crisp text and images without any of the bugs you’ll find on the desktop. Using Windows 8 apps would be a great way to avoid all the problems with the desktop — if there were enough apps available. Switching to the new Windows 8 interface will be a non-starter for most people, especially since Microsoft doesn’t even offer versions of its own Office apps for the new interface.

How to Fix Mouse Lag in PC Games on Windows 8.1

How to Fix Mouse Lag in PC Games on Windows 8.1

Windows 8.1 allows Windows to work better on high-DPI displays. As part of this, the way Windows deals with mice has changed. Games that don’t read raw mouse data may end up with laggy, freezing, or stuttering mouse movement.

This problem seems to primarily affect users with high-DPI or high-polling rate mice — in other words, gaming mice. Microsoft has only released a partial fix, but there’s a way to fix this problem in any affected game.

Install Microsoft’s Patch

Microsoft provides a patch that introduces a new compatibility option to fix this problem. As part of the patch, the compatibility option is applied to a variety of popular games, including games from the Call of Duty series, Counter Strike series, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Hitman Absolution, Half-Life 2, Metro 2033, Portal, and Tomb Raider.

This patch is known as KB2908279. As of November 14, 2013, this patch has not been rolled out via Windows Update. To get the fix, you’ll have to download the patch from Microsoft’s website and install it manually.

Depending on the version of Windows 8.1 you’re using, you’ll need to download either thethe 64-bit version of this patch or the 32-bit version.

If you’re not sure which version of Windows you’re using, press the Windows key to access the Start screen, type System, and click the System shortcut. Scroll down and look at the System type line.

Fix Other Games via the Registry

The patch above does two things. One, it creates a new type of compatibility flag in Windows. Two, it applies that compatibility flag to some of the most popular games affected by this problem.

If you have a less-popular game with this problem, you’ll need to apply the compatibility option to the game on your own. Microsoft advises game developers to do this themselves so their users won’t have to, but many games may never be updated with this fix.

You can apply Microsoft’s fix to any affected game from the registry editor. Note that you must have the patch above installed for this to work.

To get started, press Windows Key + R to open the Run dialog, type regedit, and press Enter.

Browse to the following registry key, or folder:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers

The Layers key may not exist. If it doesn’t, right-click the AppCompatFlags key, point to New, select Key, type Layers, and press Enter to create it.

You’ll now need to create a new registry entry for your game. Right-click the Layers key, point to New, click String Value, type the full path of the game’s executable file, and press Enter. For example, if the game was located at C:\Program Files (x86)\Game\Engine.exe, you’d just type the following value:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Game\Engine.exe

Next, right-click the value you just created and select Modify. Type the following text into the box and press Enter:

NoDTToDITMouseBatch

You can now repeat this process to add every affected game you have.

Next, we’ll need an elevated Command Prompt window. To do this, press the Windows key to access the Start screen, type Command Prompt, right-click the Command Prompt shortcut that appears, and select Run as administrator.

In the elevated Command Prompt window, type the following command and press Enter to apply your compatibility settings:

Rundll32 apphelp.dll,ShimFlushCache

Warnings

Microsoft warns that this option will cause increased power usage, so you shouldn’t apply this option to unaffected games or other programs. In particular, they stress that this shouldn’t be applied to background processes that remain running, or your battery life will be noticeably affected.

There is another option Microsoft recommends — if the game In question has a “raw input” or DirectInput option, you can select it and the problem should be fixed.