[novemberslady]

With the UEFI, they can load whatever they want into the BIOS and lock you out of it altogether. That’s what Secure Boot does.
Thus, it eliminates your ability to wipe the disk and install Linux or use GRUB to dual-boot.
Think about that: if you want to use your machine for something OTHER than Windows, you can’t.

So you wouldn't be able to just reset the bios by pulling the battery?

[rarestia]

Doesn’t really work that way. It’s a non-volatile flash module. That means regardless of its power state, the data is saved, much like a USB thumb drive.

And even if you could flash it/reformat it, once you do, you invalidate your copy of Win8. Oh darn, right?