Can we edit bios properties from desktop?

windows-xp bios

25,122

Solution 1

Windows (your operating system) and your motherboard are entirely different things. The BIOS is integrated directly into the motherboard to act like a springboard (throwing master CPU control to the OS once it's prepared the system) for when it boots up. Windows, on the other hand, is on your harddrive and doesn't know anything about the motherboard except what the motherboard wants to tell it.

In short, no, you can't. The operating system doesn't have such low-level control over the system. If it did, you'd see a lot more viruses popping up and trashing your BIOS, right?

Solution 2

There was some efforts in that direction years ago, like the Award BIOS Editor.

Awdbedit is a BIOS editor for Award BIOSes. It supports unpacking, replacing, and repacking of components within a BIOS image, and allows settings to be changed and tweaks to be applied to the actual BIOS itself.

Such programs are usually made for a specific brand of BIOS chip. Furthermore, as pointed out in other answers, it's more and more difficult, or even impossible to access the BIOS from the OS. It can also be a cause of instability.

Solution 3

In theory YES. It is possible to read write anything from VB NET or any other high level language using Ring0. You can find a Visual C# library, for example that uses Ring0 to access even the Embedded Controller memory or PCI or IO or SuperIO ports. You can have a look here https://github.com/cody82/open-hardware-monitor

If you need a ready to use program you can invoke from vb net, then RW Everything is a very useful utility.

Solution 4

No ( the shortest answer ever :)

View more solutions

25,122

T.G

Updated on September 17, 2022

Comments

T.G almost 2 years

Can we edit bios properties from desktop? without going to bios

like to set first boot device etc.
- Michael Todd over 14 years
  
  What motherboard do you have?
- T.G over 14 years
  
  @Michael Todd - MSI - K8MMV
- sblair over 14 years
  
  Why not just reboot and set it in the BIOS as normal? You will have to reboot anyway for the boot order setting to have any effect...
- Jay Bazuzi over 14 years
  
  Suppose I want to do it remotely? Suppose I want to do it programatically? Suppose I want to look at a document of instructions?
- user1686 over 14 years
  
  You cannot imagine how I hated it when I found out that the only way to change the BIOS settings of one very old Toshiba laptop was through a custom Windows-only control panel... (I did discover the "normal" setup screen later, by mashing on the keyboard during POST.)
ChrisF over 14 years

+1 for the more detailed explanation
T.G over 14 years

ok but then how any virus can damage bios even if we don't go in bios
Snark over 14 years

can you give the name of a virus that damages the BIOS?
T.G over 14 years

@Snark - see this article tomshardware.com/news/…
exexe over 14 years

"Once an attacker has admin rights, the rootkit could be flashed onto the BIOS [...]" -- When this article says acquiring 'admin rights', it's not talking about Windows administrator. It's talking about master control of the CPU. No application has master control - that is reserved for the OS only, and for certain uses following strict security protocol. The only way to get around that is to exploit a security fault in Windows to bypass the OS. If you write a program that manipulates the BIOS, it's a virus, hands down. And I believe it can only flash (reinstall) the BIOS, not edit settings.
Chris over 14 years

The virus can flash a new BIOS, but settings cannot be modified without a restart. I would guess this is because the CMOS holds the BIOS software, but I think that the BIOS settings are stored elsewhere on the motherboard because the BIOS battery holds those settings, and if the battery goes dead, your settings are lost but the CMOS remains.
Zibri almost 8 years

this not true at all! utilities like "rw everything" (to say one) can work very low level... a simple "I don't know" would have sufficed.
Zibri almost 8 years

and the wrongest
Community over 2 years

Your answer could be improved with additional supporting information. Please edit to add further details, such as citations or documentation, so that others can confirm that your answer is correct. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center.
Greenonline over 2 years

It would be better to include the details from the link, else your answer is a bit of a link-only answer.