these games only accept the secure boot setup where the root key is that of microsoft’s. that means that you either need windows with a pre-approved configuration in some regards (notable difference: any foss kernel drivers are nono because they won’t ever be signed) or a linux system for which microsoft gives a secureboot shim with whatever further restrictions.
the consequences are more obvious if you look at android as an example. It’s not called secure boot there, but android verified boot, and the turning off of it is called “bootloader unlocking”. very few phones support installing your own signing keys so you can’t take advantage of it with a bloatless android distribution. but even on phones that do, there are many apps that require a locked bootloader with the factory keys, including banking apps, nfc payment apps, government apps (including those that are required to access the online government account), entertainment apps with strict DRM, …
these games only accept the secure boot setup where the root key is that of microsoft’s.
I have a PC where I could actually test this. Custom MOK but with all the MS signatures in the database. I can boot into Windows through the BIOS using only the MS-signed bootloader instead of GRUB or any chain loader, and Windows itself considers Secure Boot to be enabled successfully.
Do you know if it would immediately reject the game from launching, or would I be flagged and banned later as some kind of ban wave?
I can boot into Windows through the BIOS using only the MS-signed bootloader instead of GRUB or any chain loader, and Windows itself considers Secure Boot to be enabled successfully.
I assume that’s because your motherboard still has the microsoft keys installed besides the MOK keys, and it verified the bootloader with that. thats why it accepts the ms signed bootloader. as I know not all motherboards allow removing it, and there are a few buggy ones that get hard bricked if you do that.
Care to elaborate?
these games only accept the secure boot setup where the root key is that of microsoft’s. that means that you either need windows with a pre-approved configuration in some regards (notable difference: any foss kernel drivers are nono because they won’t ever be signed) or a linux system for which microsoft gives a secureboot shim with whatever further restrictions.
the consequences are more obvious if you look at android as an example. It’s not called secure boot there, but android verified boot, and the turning off of it is called “bootloader unlocking”. very few phones support installing your own signing keys so you can’t take advantage of it with a bloatless android distribution. but even on phones that do, there are many apps that require a locked bootloader with the factory keys, including banking apps, nfc payment apps, government apps (including those that are required to access the online government account), entertainment apps with strict DRM, …
I have a PC where I could actually test this. Custom MOK but with all the MS signatures in the database. I can boot into Windows through the BIOS using only the MS-signed bootloader instead of GRUB or any chain loader, and Windows itself considers Secure Boot to be enabled successfully.
Do you know if it would immediately reject the game from launching, or would I be flagged and banned later as some kind of ban wave?
The latter is something I would prefer to avoid.
I think there’s some linux command to query the installed keys, but here I have only found the command for listing all the installed mok keys: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_Interface/Secure_Boot
I assume that’s because your motherboard still has the microsoft keys installed besides the MOK keys, and it verified the bootloader with that. thats why it accepts the ms signed bootloader. as I know not all motherboards allow removing it, and there are a few buggy ones that get hard bricked if you do that.