Users must agree with the Microsoft Eula, or else...

May 29, 2013 13:52 GMT  ·  By

The Linux developers have managed to sort out the Secure Boot problems, but Microsoft really seems to hate anything that's not Microsoft related.

If a user has just acquired a Windows 8 system, it's impossible to boot into the firmware menu without having to agree with the Microsoft EULA agreement.

A Windows 8 powered device doesn't power the USB drives of the system in order to reduce the boot time. This means that users have to agree with the EULA, which is considered a legal agreement between the user and Microsoft.

This issue has been thoroughly explained by Matthew Garrett, a firmware developer for the Linux kernel. The point is that users have to give up certain rights in order to access the hardware of a device they actually own.

“I'm firmly of the opinion that there are benefits to Secure Boot. I'm also in favour of setups like Fast Boot. But I don't believe that anyone should be forced to agree to a EULA purely in order to be able to boot their own choice of OS on a system that they've already purchased,” said Garrett on his blog.