How to disable Secure Boot on Surface Pro devices

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by Radu Tyrsina 

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What do we have here? Are you feeling all experimental, attempting to install something other than Windows on your Surface Pro device? Is it Android? Ubuntu? Dare we ask, Mac OSX? Whichever the case, you’ll need to disable Secure Boot on your Surface Pro before you can proceed. Here’s how to do that.

Step 1: Shut down your Surface Pro

Step 2: Press and hold the volume-up button

Step 3: Press and release the power button while holding down the volume up button

Step 4: Release the volume up button when the Surface logo appears

Step 5: Select ‘Secure Boot Control’

Step 6: Select ‘Disable’

Step 7: Select ‘Exit Setup’, then ‘Yes’ to save and restart the device

That’s it, you should now be able to continue with your OS installation, or boot into an OS from an external storage device.

NOTE: Disabling Secure Boot will change the Surface boot screen to red, this is normal. Enabling it will return the boot screen to its original ‘Surface’ on a black background.

Radu Tyrsina

Radu Tyrsina Shield

Radu Tyrsina has been a Windows fan ever since he got his first PC, a Pentium III (a monster at that time). For most of the kids of his age, the Internet was an amazing way to play and communicate with others, but he was deeply impressed by the flow of information and how easily you can find anything on the web. Prior to founding Windows Report, this particular curiosity about digital content enabled him to grow a number of sites that helped hundreds of millions reach faster the answer they're looking for.