EFI Firmware Issues

(Always Boots Straight To Windows)

Some motherboards have defective EFI firmware that causes boot problems.

This is particularly prevalent in motherboards with firmware dates of 2017 or earlier.

However a number of brand new motherboards also have this issue.

The reason is that these motherboards contain EFI firmware does not follow EFI standards.

The most common symptom is that your machine boots Windows no matter what.

Therefore the Grub2Win menu never appears.  

Manufacturers sometimes "play it safe" and will always boot Windows, regardless of the firmware settings.

Certain Linux install programs also change the EFI firmware stack, causing a similar issue.

The Grub2Win boot menu never appears.

There are several possible actions to remedy this problem.

Try them in the following sequence:

Action 1

First, remove any flash or USB drives you have connected.

These often contain multiple EFI partitions that can interfere with the boot process.

Action 2

Run Grub2Win and click the blue "Set EFI Firmware Boot Order" button.

When the menu comes up, check the "Force Unconditional Load of Grub2Win" box.

Click the "Apply Updates" button and allow the EFI update to complete.

Return to the main menu and close Grub2Win.

Now re-boot and see if the Grub2Win menu appears.

You should boot three or four times to make sure the firmware settings remain stable.

Action 3

Go into your machine's BIOS EFI settings and try moving Grub2Win to the top of the EFI boot order.

You can access you machine's EFI settings by the Click To Reboot Your Machine For EFI Firmware Setup

button on the Main Configuration screen.

The procedure to set the EFI boot order varies greatly by motherboard manufacturer. 

Consult your motherboard or PC user manual for detailed instructions.

Once again, re-boot and see if the Grub2Win menu appears.

Action 4

If this doesn't work, try updating your EFI firmware to a newer version.

You will need to go to the manufacturer's website to see if newer EFI firmware is available for download.

The machine model and BIOS information can be found by clicking the blue "System Info" button on the main Grub2Win screen.

After you have installed the new EFI firmware, re-boot and see if the Grub2Win menu appears.

You should boot three or four times to make sure the firmware settings remain stable.

If all else fails, you may want to consider upgrading to a different motherboard or machine.

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