Windows 10: Check if Windows 10 is using UEFI or Legacy BIOS

How to: Check if Windows 10 is using UEFI or Legacy BIOS

How to Check if Windows 10 is using UEFI or Legacy BIOS


You might be wondering if Windows 10 is using UEFI or the legacy BIOS.

For more information, see:

• Boot and UEFI | Microsoft Docs
• UEFI Firmware
• UEFI in Windows | Microsoft Docs
• UEFI firmware requirements | Microsoft Docs
• Boot to UEFI Mode or Legacy BIOS mode

This tutorial will show you different ways on how to check if Windows 10 is using UEFI or legacy BIOS.


CONTENTS:

• Option One: To Check if Windows 10 is using UEFI or Legacy BIOS in System Information
• Option Two: To Check if Windows 10 is using UEFI or Legacy BIOS in Disk Management
• Option Three: To Check if Windows 10 is using UEFI or Legacy BIOS using BCDEDIT command
• Option Four: To Check if Windows 10 is using UEFI or Legacy BIOS in Command Prompt at Boot

OPTION ONE [/i] To Check if Windows 10 is using UEFI or Legacy BIOS in System Information
1 Press the Win + R keys to open Run, type msinfo32 into Run, and click/tap on OK to open System Information.

2 In the right pane of System Summary in System Information, see if the BIOS Mode item has a value of Legacy or UEFI. (see screenshots below)












OPTION TWO [/i] To Check if Windows 10 is using UEFI or Legacy BIOS in Disk Management
1 Open the Win+X menu, and click/tap on Disk Management.

2 If your Windows disk shows having an EFI partition, then it's using UEFI. If your Windows disk shows having an System Reserved partition, then it's using Legacy BIOS. (see screenshots below)












OPTION THREE [/i] To Check if Windows 10 is using UEFI or Legacy BIOS using BCDEDIT command
1 Open an command prompt at boot.

2 Type bcdedit into the command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshots below)

3 Look under the Windows Boot Loader section for your Windows 10, and look to see if the path is \Windows\system32\winload.exe (legacy BIOS) or \Windows\system32\winload.efi (UEFI).











OPTION FOUR [/i] To Check if Windows 10 is using UEFI or Legacy BIOS in Command Prompt at Boot
1 Open a command prompt at boot.

2 Type the command below into the command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
wpeutil UpdateBootInfo
3 Type the command below into the command prompt, and press Enter.
reg query HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control /v PEFirmwareType
4 Look to see if the PEFirmwareType DWORD shows as 0x1 (legacy BIOS) or 0x2 (UEFI). (see screenshot below)




That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Convert Windows 10 from Legacy BIOS to UEFI without Data Loss
• How to Check if Disk is MBR or GPT in Windows
• How to Check BIOS or UEFI Firmware Version in Windows 10
• How to Enable or Disable Secure Boot on Windows 10 PC

:)

 

Windows 10 UEFI BIOS

It looks like your hardware supports both the new firmware standard (UEFI), and the old firmware standard (Legacy or BIOS).

Based on your description, it seems that Windows 10 was installed in UEFI mode. Legacy firmware can't see UEFI, and that's why when you enter Legacy, you can't see the newer, UEFI-based Windows 10.

The solution? Reinstall Windows 10 using legacy boot instead of UEFI.

 

Unable to upgrade to Windows 10, Error message: A system image created using UEFI cannot be restored on a computer using legacy BIOS.

Hi,



UEFI BIOS supports two boot modes: Legacy BIOS boot mode and UEFI boot mode. Some devices and operating systems do not yet support UEFI-based BIOS and can boot only from Legacy BIOS boot mode. Choose Legacy BIOS boot mode to allow HBAs and Express
Module devices to use option ROMs. Choose UEFI boot mode to use UEFI drivers.



Only devices that support the selected boot mode are listed on the BIOS Boot screen. If you select UEFI Boot Mode, only boot candidates that support UEFI BIOS boot mode are listed on the BIOS Setup Utility screens in the Boot Options Priority list.
If you select Legacy BIOS boot mode, only boot candidates that support Legacy BIOS boot mode are listed in the Boot Options Priority list.



Please refer to the below article to Upgrade to Windows 10 using ISO File.

How to Upgrade to Windows 10 Anniversary Update version 1607 using ISO File



Hope you can upgrade to Windows 10.

Let us know if you need further assistance on upgrading to Windows 10, we will be glad to help you.

 

*Thumbs

I can't help but add multiple options. *Redface

 

Of the 5 options I tried 1 to 4. 3 of the 4 worked. Thx. The one that did not work was notebook opened as administrator and then file open setupact. Using edit find detected, or boot, or environment each displayed cannot find respectively. Does a panther command need to be run again or does something need to be un-hidden?

Microsoft OneDrive - Access files anywhere. Create docs with free Office Online.

 

Hello zbook, *Smile

I find that copying the setupact.log file to your desktop first, then opening the one on the desktop with notebook works best.

I looked at your file, and it doesn't seem the info was logged in to it. How was Windows installed on your PC?

Of course, this is the main reason why I have more than one option to check.

 

Hi Brink,
This computer last had a clean install using a bootable windows 10 iso.
Using administrative notepad for file search setupact.log there was only one result.
Using file explorer search for setupact.log there were 8 results.
These are the results after renaming and saving to the desktop: Microsoft OneDrive - Access files anywhere. Create docs with free Office Online.
Using file explorer search for C:\Windows\Panther there were 19 results
These are the 19 results: Microsoft OneDrive - Access files anywhere. Create docs with free Office Online.
The 8 results using search for setupact.log were pasted to the desk top renaming them 1 to 8.
Of the 8 results only one of them was useful as it had the find Detected boot environment which displayed EFI.
So it worked!
Microsoft OneDrive - Access files anywhere. Create docs with free Office Online.
Through the process I had only searched for boot to create the most find results.
Once I found results I added the detected and it no longer produced the result.
In the process I learned that when using find the entry of the words must be in order and the exact spelling must be used. For example detected environment produced no results, boot detected produced no results, and detect boot environment produced no results. Only the 7th setupact.log had a result and only if find was used exactly as detected boot environment.

This was the computer windows upgrade history:
There were two windows 10 version 1607 clean installs in March 2017. In April 2017 there was a failed to upgrade to windows 1703.
C:\$Windows.~BT\Sources\Panther was used to generate log files to troubleshoot the upgrade failure.
Analysis of the logs led to the report that the upgrade was seeking more free space than what was available in the EFI partition.
The size of the partition was ok for the upgrade. It was the free space within the partition that was insufficient. Within this partition were files for foreign language, font, and UEFI diagnostics. It was unclear how to remove items from this partition. HP suggested using command line but they did not provide information on how they planned to remove the downloaded HP UEFI diagnostics (not available to uninstall via control panel).
It was repaired using the information in this link (explorer.exe): https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...ing-windows-10
Was there an easy method using command line to uninstall the UEFI diagnostics folder? Using diskpart?
Or was there an easy method using command line to uninstall the Microsoft language folders or font files?
Backup files are highly recommended. If files were not backed up which method is considered safer explorer.exe or command line? Another option was to leave the contents of the EFI partition but enlarge its size. It was unclear whether this would place the nearby files at risk. It remains a learning experience for me as I need more experience in these areas.

 

I'm glad to hear you were able to check using Option 3 now. *Smile

It would be best to create a new thread for the other questions though to get better support for.