MSI trials EFI BIOS replacement

[Capper]

MSI HAS ANNOUNCED plans to trial the supposed future BIOS replacement, EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface).
The EFI specification was primarily intended to support Intel's past and future architectures under one umbrella, but has taken sometime to come be adopted by manufacturers.
Intel's biggest EFI win was Apple, which has implemented EFI throughout the Intel Mac range.
EFI is a specification that defines a software interface between an operating system and platform firmware. EFI is intended as a significantly improved replacement of the old legacy BIOS firmware interface used by modern PCs.
The EFI specification was originally developed by Intel, and is now managed by the Unified EFI Forum and is officially known as Unified EFI (UEFI).
While this is all sounds nicely formalised and specified, you might be asking how this effects you, the end user.
The specification allows for a considerable change in what can be implemented at this very low level.
Graphical menus, standard mouse point-and-click operations, pre-operating-system application support such as web browsers, mail applications and media players, will all feature heavily within EFI.

MSI trials EFI BIOS replacement - The INQUIRER

EFI was supposed to replace the BIOS 21/2-3 yrs ago, but the switch never really materialized. Back then I wrote a lengthy piece on it that included some information from INTEL and other sources....but I can't seem to find the article now.

Never the less, I think the BIOS in its current format is outdated, and needs to be replaced, and I am hoping that this is the first step toward a much wider adoption of EFI.

[gvblake22]

Agreed, the BIOS is definitely outdated and ready for replacement. Bit-tech published an interesting column about EFI a while back...

[Capper]

yeah, i had a nice article put together back when i worked for another site....not sure what happened to it. Anyway, maybe I'll work on something someday soon about EFI.

[Lead Head]

my old Compaq laptop had something similar to EFI. But instead of storing the setup program on a chip on the motherboard, it was stored on a parition on the harddrive. Hit F11 during bootup, and it would load some kinda custom Dos/Windows 3.1 thing, with mouse support and color graphics which you would use to adjust bios settings.

[gvblake22]

Another EFI article at Bit-tech...

[screwballl]

One down side of this is much stronger DRM can be implemented if RIAA gets their greedy hands on it. This means even legal music and movies can be disabled on the hard drive if one illegal program or song is found so that even if you copy it to another device or try to play it on the computer, it will be corrupt. It can be used so that any program such as Daemon tools and DVDShrink and DVDfab and any music or movie ripping or burning program can be disabled.
We need very specific rules for what we as the technology community will stand for relating to EFI. This is one major reason why it has not taken hold very well yet except in the Mac community. Even 32-bit Vista does not support EFI (but 64-bit does)

[gvblake22]

Good points screwballl, I hadn't thought about DRM infestations with EFI...

[wtcnbrwndo4u]

If they have complete control of the computer, isn't that illegal? Because I can bet your ass thousands of people will file lawsuits saying they didn't know they were being tracked and some other things against privacy.

While this is all sounds nicely formalised and specified, you might be asking how this effects you, the end user.

On the other hand, this is one terrible editing job.