Microsoft adds secure boot support to Windows 7

Microsoft has added secure boot to Windows 7. The operating system received its latest official security update earlier this week, but Microsoft seems to have added the new feature a few months ago.

The feature became spotted by a Twitter user on a Chinese forum. Neowin confirms that the option was indeed added in Windows 7. That would have happened last year. Microsoft already added the feature in KB5017361, the Patch Tuesday update for Windows 7 from September 2022. At that time, the feature was not explicitly included in the release notes.

The function does not yet work properly, write the users of the CSDN forum. Problems mainly arise when they use certain VGA drivers.

Secure boot is a method of booting a device only if software such as the operating system is cryptographically verified by the manufacturer or seller. That way, users know that the operating system has not been surreptitiously tampered with.

It is striking that Microsoft is now releasing such an update. As of this week, Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 no longer receive security updates, not even through the paid Extended Security Updates program. Although secure boot was already implemented in September last year, Microsoft already knew that the end of security updates was coming. Due to the lack of those updates, Windows 7 is practically no longer safe to use without external support from services such as 0patch.