{"id":466152,"date":"2026-05-03T08:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-03T08:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/466152\/"},"modified":"2026-05-03T08:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-03T08:38:11","slug":"how-to-check-if-your-windows-pc-is-ready-for-the-secure-boot-certificate-expiry-in-june-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/466152\/","title":{"rendered":"How to check if your Windows PC is ready for the secure boot certificate expiry in June 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most people will never need to think about Secure Boot certificates<\/a>. They live deep in your PC\u2019s firmware, do their job silently, and have been doing so since 2011 without asking for much in return. But that quiet run is about to end. The original certificates expire in June 2026, and while Microsoft is pushing updates automatically to many machines, plenty of PCs are going to miss the memo entirely. Here\u2019s how to find out if yours is one of them \u2014 and what to actually do about it.<\/p>\n

Step 1: Check whether your PC already has the updated certificates<\/p>\n

Before you do anything else, find out where you stand. The quickest way is through PowerShell.<\/p>\n

Open the Start menu, type\u00a0PowerShell<\/strong>, and select\u00a0Run as administrator<\/strong>. Once it\u2019s open, paste this command exactly as written and hit Enter:<\/p>\n

\"Page,<\/p>\n

\t\tShimul Sood \/ Digital Trends<\/p>\n

([System.Text.Encoding]::ASCII.GetString((Get-SecureBootUEFI db).bytes) -match ‘Windows UEFI CA 2023’)<\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019ll get back either a\u00a0True<\/strong>\u00a0or a\u00a0False<\/strong>. True means your PC already has the updated 2023 certificates, and you\u2019re good to go. False means your machine is still running on the old ones that are due to expire \u2014 and you need to keep reading.<\/p>\n

Step 2: Run Windows update and check for OEM firmware updates<\/p>\n

If you got a False, your first move is straightforward \u2014 open Windows Update and check for any pending updates. For most Windows 11 users<\/a>, the new certificates are being delivered this way, and a routine update may already be waiting for you.<\/p>\n

\"Blue,<\/p>\n

\t\tShimul Sood \/ Digital Trends<\/p>\n

If updates don\u2019t resolve it, particularly on older hardware, the fix may need to come from your PC manufacturer rather than Microsoft. Head to your OEM\u2019s support site \u2014 Dell, HP, Lenovo, ASUS, and others all maintain dedicated firmware and driver pages \u2014 and search for your specific model. Not every manufacturer will support older systems, but it\u2019s worth checking before assuming you\u2019re out of options.<\/p>\n

Step 3: If firmware isn\u2019t an option, try the manual registry method<\/p>\n

For situations where a firmware update isn\u2019t available but your PC can still run a supported version of Windows 11, Microsoft has documented a workaround that bypasses the need to touch the BIOS entirely.<\/p>\n

Open Command Prompt as an administrator and run the following:<\/p>\n

\"Page,<\/p>\n

\t\tShimul Sood \/ Digital Trends<\/p>\n

reg add HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlSecureboot \/v AvailableUpdates \/t REG_DWORD \/d 0x40 \/f Start-ScheduledTask -TaskName “MicrosoftWindowsPISecure-Boot-Update”<\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019ll need to restart your PC a couple of times after this runs. Once it\u2019s back up, run the PowerShell check from Step 1 to confirm that the new certificates have been applied successfully.<\/p>\n

A note for Windows 10 users:<\/strong>\u00a0Microsoft has been clear that unsupported versions of Windows won\u2019t receive the updated certificates. If you\u2019re on Windows 10<\/a> without an Extended Security Update (ESU) subscription, none of the above will help you. Enrolling in ESU before the October 14, 2026, deadline is the only way to stay in line for the certificate update \u2014 and buying yourself that extra time is worth it if upgrading to Windows 11 isn\u2019t on the cards just yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most people will never need to think about Secure Boot certificates. They live deep in your PC\u2019s firmware,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[74],"tags":[314,18,19,17,82,6950,67726,204676,204677],"class_list":{"0":"post-466152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-technology","8":"tag-computing","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-technology","13":"tag-windows","14":"tag-windows-10","15":"tag-windows-11-laptop","16":"tag-windows-pc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116509744289004718","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}