Event details
It's time for our third Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA) about updating Secure Boot certificates on your Windows devices before they expire in June of 2026. If you've already bookmarked Secure Boot playbook, but need more details or have a specific question, join us to get the answers you need to prepare for this milestone. No question is too big or too small. Update scenarios, inventorying your estate, formulating the right deployment plan for your organization -- we're here to help!
How do I participate?
Registration is not required. Simply select Add to calendar then sign in to the Tech Community and select Attend to receive reminders. Post your questions in advance, or any time during the live broadcast
Get started with these helpful resources
273 Comments
- Paul_WoodwardIron Contributor
If we don't get all the devices up-to-date before June, will it be possible to get them up-to-date later, or will they be stuck on old Boot Certs.
- Arden_White
Microsoft
Yes, the devices will continue to boot and run. Not updating the certificates will begin to put your devices at risk.
More details here:
- TxRedinTNOccasional Reader
Arden_White How is Windows 10 LTSC, Win10 IOT LTSC, and Windows 11 IOT LTSC affected by the certificates? Will the new 2023 certificates be install on these devices? Win10LTSC and Win10 IOT LTSC should still be getting windows updates without the extended licensing. Thank you.
- CTKMNCopper Contributor
I respect that you are picking and choosing which questions to answer, but before you shut down, could you answer some of the vSphere-related questions? Inquiring minds want to know :-)
- Cliff_HughesCopper Contributor
On the hyperv question, both the host and the guests were updated with the march CU's, so it resolved the errors with it being read only, but I did not expect it to reboot the computer 4 times in 30 minutes to get the job done, other client testing only one or two reboots were needed, and it was not happening automatically ever 3 or 4 minutes in a row on the device. Also still not seeing an answer for the Capable = 2 versus capable = 0 even though they show updated status otherwise.
- Paul_WoodwardIron Contributor
Been very disappointed by the new Secure Boot reports in Intune. Months late to the party, and you cannot filter or search on the "Certificate Status" field. And many devices show as 'unknown'.
- Jason_Sandys
Microsoft
Hi Paul_Woodward, The easiest way to handle this is to export the report to CSV and use your favorite CSV manipulation tool to achieve this, e.g., PowerShell or Excel.
Alternatively, you can use a Remediation in Intune to supplement the built-in report: Monitoring Secure Boot certificate status with Microsoft Intune remediations - Microsoft Support
- Sunila ChughCopper Contributor
Can you please clarify what does 'Not applicable' means for the certificate status in the Intune report - Reports>Windows quality updates>Reports>Secure Boot Status>Certificate status and if any action is needed for these?
- Jason_Sandys
Microsoft
Hi Sunila Chugh, This is generally due to one of two things:
- The device hasn't reported in yet.
- The device isn't configured to share diagnostic data.
The documentation at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/windows-autopatch/monitor/secure-boot-status-report#data-freshness-reporting-latency-and-diagnostic-data-requirements has more details on this.
- Bryant_KintnerCopper Contributor
Using PowerShell, this is how we're detecting if the devices have updated their Secure Boot certificates. Is this valid code? Is there better code we should be using?
# Detect if 2023 KEK certificate is installed
[System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetString((Get-SecureBootUEFI kek).bytes) -match 'Microsoft Corporation KEK 2K CA 2023'
# Detect if 2023 DB (Windows) certificate is installed
[System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetString((Get-SecureBootUEFI db).bytes) -match 'Windows UEFI CA 2023'
# Detect if 2023 DB (Third Party) certificates are installed
[System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetString((Get-SecureBootUEFI db).bytes) -match 'Microsoft UEFI CA 2023'
[System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetString((Get-SecureBootUEFI db).bytes) -match 'Microsoft Option ROM UEFI CA 2023'
# Detect if boot files are signed by 2023 certificate
$efiPartition = Get-Partition | Where-Object {$_.GptType -eq "{C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B}"}
Add-PartitionAccessPath -DiskNumber $efiPartition.DiskNumber -PartitionNumber $efiPartition.PartitionNumber -AccessPath "S:"
$efiBootmgfw = New-Object System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates.X509Certificate2Collection
$efiBootmgfw.Import("S:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi", $null, 'DefaultKeySet')
($efiBootmgfw | ? {$_.Subject -eq 'CN=Windows UEFI CA 2023, O=Microsoft Corporation, C=US'}) -ne $null
Remove-PartitionAccessPath -DiskNumber $efiPartition.DiskNumber -PartitionNumber $efiPartition.PartitionNumber -AccessPath "S:"
- Jason_Sandys
Microsoft
Hi Bryant_Kintner, Our sample script for this task is published at Sample Secure Boot Inventory Data Collection script - Microsoft Support. We recommend using this as an example to use or start from being careful to test and validate in your environment (and with the caveats listed in the scripts NOTES section). Be sure to sign the script with your own signing cert as well.
- Jay MurphyOccasional Reader
If my device doesn't have UEFICA2023 cert and can no longer PXE, what would be the process to update that machine if the device is not bootable.
- mihiBrass Contributor
Have your PXE server push securebootrecovery.efi as the boot binary for just that device (e.g. by mac address).
Otherwise I am unsure what you mean by "device is not bootable". Anything signed with the old 2011 cert will still boot fine. So put securebootrecovery.efi on a bootable device and boot from it. Done.
- mataylorOccasional Reader
What impact will the TLS lifetime decreasing to 47 days have on these secure boot certificates? Will these certificates eventually need to be replaced every 47 days?
https://www.digicert.com/blog/tls-certificate-lifetimes-will-officially-reduce-to-47-days- Jason_Sandys
Microsoft
Hi mataylor,
These certificates are not TLS certificates and are not used for TLS and thus unrelated to this guidance from DigiCert.
- JamesEppIron Contributor
My understanding is that all the UEFI certificate/keying is not subject to CA/Browser Forum baseline requirements. Heck, "expiration" seems to be more a suggestion from my understanding of these certificates, especially the PKs which come from the OEMs.
- ClientAdminBrass Contributor
Currently there's only a GPO (ADMX) to do the update of the certificates. Are you also working on a GPO (ADMX) for the "revocation" (dbx) of the 2011 certificates?
- Jason_Sandys
Microsoft
Hi ClientAdmin,
Not at this time no as we have no plans on adding these certs to DBX since they are needed to validate existing boot critical components signed by these certs. Adding these certs to DBX now would completely break Windows unless we intended to update and re-sign all boot critical components with the new certs but we have no plans on doing this since there is no value in doing this.
- Jason_Sandys
Microsoft
Quick follow-up caveat here: revoking the PCA cert (by adding it to DBX) is something we are recommending in the long run. This is the cert used to sign the boot loader (and only the boot loader) as there is an attack vector here as was exploited some past attack(s). To be clear, this is only for the PCA cert and does not materially change my answer above.
- jeddunnCopper Contributor
We are having some issues getting the new certs installed on our VM guests. Our ESXI is patched to newest level but our hosts are showing the following error:
The Secure Boot update failed to update KEK 2023 with error Invalid access to memory location
- COLDESTJOHNCopper Contributor
What version of ESXi are you running?
there’s a article from Broadcom that you need to power down the vm and rename/remove NVRAM en then boot vm again. After that you will see this error disappear. Here’s the article :
https://knowledge.broadcom.com/external/article/415333/error-unable-to-upgrade-a-vm-due-to-boot.html
- jeddunnCopper Contributor
We are on ESXI 8.0.3