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Don't Forget to Change These 5 BIOS Settings When Dual-Booting Windows and Linux
Are you dual-booting Windows and Linux but struggling with a clunky boot process and system conflicts? Wondering why your setup feels less smooth than promised? Well, here are five essential BIOS settings that, when changed, can potentially fix these headaches immediately.
The majority of problems with a dual-boot setup stem from the system using BIOS or UEFI settings designed for PCs running a single operating system. Thankfully, changing just a few settings in the BIOS can solve all of these issues, and it’ll barely take more than a couple of minutes. So restart your system, jump into your BIOS settings, and let's turn on (and off) some toggles!
The BIOS/UEFI settings I am going to talk about are available on virtually all modern systems, but the exact name of the feature can vary based on the manufacturer. To help you out, I have provided you with what the settings are called and where they are located on GIGABYTE motherboards, since that’s what I’m using!
Configure Boot Priority
The whole purpose of dual-booting is to choose which OS you want to boot into. Traditionally, this is done in a clunky way, where you turn on your computer, see your boot logo (motherboard logo), and frantically hit F2 or Del or whatever the right key is for your system to access the BIOS. If you don't intervene, your system automatically boots into whichever OS is first in the boot order—typically Windows if you installed it first.
Now, this works fine if you mostly use Windows and only want to use Linux occasionally. However, if you primarily use Linux, or both systems equally, vigilantly hitting the F2 key every time you want to switch OSes can be really inconvenient. Fortunately, dual booting doesn't need to be this complicated thanks to GRUB—the Linux bootloader!
You see, every operating system has a bootloader responsible for—loading the OS during the boot process. Windows uses Windows Boot Manager, while modern Linux distros ship with GRUB (more precisely GRUB2). The problem with Windows Boot Manager is that it only recognizes Windows by default. GRUB, however, is much more OS-aware and recognizes almost every OS, including Windows.
As such, if you're running a Linux-Windows dual-boot system, it's best to prioritize Linux in the boot order. That way, when you start your system, it'll automatically jump into GRUB, where you can easily pick which OS to boot into or wait a few seconds for it to auto-boot into your preferred OS. Now, you can change boot priority from BIOS/UEFI settings. On my motherboard, it's located under "Boot Option Priorities" under the BIOS section.
GRUB is highly customizable. You can easily change how it looks, set a preferred OS to boot into, configure a standby timer, and even add custom commands to help you with troubleshooting for when you have booting issues!
Disable Fast Boot and Fast Startup
As a dual booter, you want full control over the boot process, but two settings can seriously interfere with it: Fast Boot and Fast Startup. While these terms are often used interchangeably, they are different settings that both need your attention.
Fast Boot is a BIOS or UEFI setting that skips some hardware checks and initialization processes to make your system boot more quickly. On some devices, it might not cause an issue, while on others it can skip the bootloader or GRUB entirely and boot into the default OS—preventing you from picking an OS during startup. It can also disable USB devices during startup, so your keyboard and mouse won't work until the operating system loads completely, preventing you from selecting the OS you want to boot into, even if you see the bootloader.
To avoid this drama, simply disable Fast Boot from BIOS/UEFI settings. On my system, the setting is located under the BIOS section as "Fast Boot."
On most systems, Fast Boot is generally disabled by default, but a few laptops, especially gaming laptops, come with it enabled.
Fast Startup is a Windows setting enabled by default on Windows 10 and 11 that functions like a "hybrid" shutdown. It closes all user sessions when you turn off your PC but hibernates the kernel session and stores it on the hard disk. As such, the disk remains in use and can't be accessed by other operating systems. This can create issues if your dual boot setup has both Windows and Linux installed on the same disk, which can potentially cause data corruption.
That said, the feature isn't that big of an issue if Windows and Linux are on separate drives (for example, I have Windows on NVMe and Linux on SATA SSD), but Fast Startup will prevent you from freely accessing Windows files from Linux—limiting you to read-only access instead of the normal convenience of copying and moving files between systems. This is why I recommend disabling this setting as well! See our detailed guide to help you disable Fast Startup on Windows 10 (which should also work on Windows 11).
In case you're wondering if disabling these settings will slow down system startup—it might, but not by much! In most modern systems, especially ones running SSDs, Windows and Linux boot in a few seconds. These settings barely shave a couple of seconds off, which won't matter to most in practice.
Disable Secure Boot (but Only if You Have To)
Secure Boot is a feature that checks whether the bootloader being executed during startup is signed or certified. If the bootloader has proper certification, it's considered secure and allowed to run—otherwise, it's blocked. This is fundamentally a security feature built to protect Windows from rootkit attacks.
Now, some Linux distros like Arch and Arch-based derivatives want to maintain independence from Microsoft's certificate authority system and generally prefer user control over convenience. As such, these distros are not signed by default and will get blocked by Secure Boot. You cansign your own kernel through MOK (Machine Owner Key) enrollment to make your Arch distro compatible with Secure Boot, but it's a technically complex process, and most folks prefer disabling the option. On Gigabyte motherboards, you can disable the option by heading into BIOS > Secure Boot.
For reference, in my setup running Windows 11 with Garuda Linux, I have Secure Boot disabled because Garuda doesn't come with a signed kernel. It does make my Windows partition more vulnerable to those specific attacks, but I believe those threats are relatively manageable as long as you maintain proper digital hygiene—don't download sketchy files or click suspicious email links!
All that said, some Linux distros do ship with signed kernels and are compatible with Secure Boot—Ubuntu and Linux Mint being two popular examples. If you're dual-booting Windows with either of those distros, you can keep it enabled—and I'd recommend you do so. An extra layer of security is always welcome!
Enable Virtualization Support (If You Need It)
Since you're setting up a dual-boot system, I'll presume you're a tech-savvy user interested in testing tools like Docker containers, KVM/QEMU, and other virtualization software. All these tools require hardware virtualization support, which is generally disabled by default. So, to save you the trouble of setting it up in the future, my advice would be to enable it while you’re changing all these other settings in the BIOS—it won’t do you any harm!
Now, the exact name of the setting will vary based on your CPU brand. On Intel, it's called Intel VT-x, and on AMD, it's called AMD-V, but that's not universal either and can change based on the motherboard. For example, on my Gigabyte motherboard, I'm looking for SVM Mode, which enables virtualization for my Ryzen 5 5600G CPU. The setting is often buried under other options. On my system, I need to head into M.I.T > Advanced Frequency Settings > Advanced CPU Settings, and then from there enable SVM Mode.
Enable TPM (If It's Not Already)
TPM, short for Trusted Platform Module, is a dedicated tamper-resistant security microchip on the motherboard that stores cryptographic keys, passwords, and certificates. Think of it as a secure vault that's separate from your main CPU and storage. Windows 11 requires TPM 2.0 enabled to function properly.You can technically install
Now, most Linux distros are TPM-agnostic and will work whether it's enabled or disabled. If you're running a dual-boot system with Windows 11 and Linux, my advice would be to enable TPM. I'm mentioning this because I know some Linux-first users try to disable TPM only because Microsoft wants you to enable it. I don't think this paranoia is warranted in the case of TPM, especially if you're running a dual boot PC with Windows as one of the OSes!
If you're running relatively modern hardware—something from 2016 or above—it should have TPM 2.0 support. It's generally enabled by default on most laptops, but some motherboard manufacturers keep it disabled, e.g., if you bought a standalone motherboard for building a desktop PC. On Gigabyte motherboards, you can find it under the Peripherals section, labeled as Trusted Computing 2.0. Inside you want to enable "Secure Device Support".
The most common use of TPM is to store the encrypted keys if you choose to use BitLocker to encrypt your Windows drive. While doing so is OK, don’t simultaneously store encrypted keys for your Linux drive as well, because that can lead to key ownership conflicts and potentially lock you out from both OSes. As such, just use TPM for Windows, not for Linux—LUKS encryption doesn’t need it!
That's it! With these five BIOS tweaks, your dual-boot setup should finally work as smoothly as promised. No more boot menu chaos or system conflicts—just seamless switching between Window