Sometimes After installing a new hardware device or application you may notice windows won’t start with Error 0xc0000428. The Digital Signature For This File Couldn’t Be Verified. This information indicates that something is wrong with the boot manager. It may be corrupted or missing, or anything could happen. This is a most terrible issue for Windows users because you can’t boot to your operating system to fix them.
The error message is like
A recent hardware or software change might have installed a file that is signed incorrectly or damaged, or that might be malicious software from an unknown source. File: \windows\system32\winload.exe Status: 0xc0000428 Info: The digital signature for this file couldn’t be verified.
What is Digital Signature?
Let’s First understand what is Digital Signature and why this error occurs? On Windows computer Digital Signatures ensure that the software publisher or hardware vendor is trusted and verified by Microsoft. But some publishers and vendors cannot always pay Microsoft to verify all their products or Microsoft cannot verify all the drivers or programs that are published every day.
If your drivers aren’t digitally signed you won’t be able to install them at all which means that you won’t be able to use the hardware that is associated with them. You will get The Digital Signature For This File Couldn’t Be Verified error at startup.
Fix Digital signature not verified error
If you are also having this error at startup and windows won’t allow you to start windows normally. Here we have some applicable solutions to get rid of this. Start With basic Troubleshooting Remove All External Devices and Restart the machine, check on next boot windows started normally? If yes then attach external devices one by one and restart windows to find out after attach which device the problem occurs.
Rebuild Boot Manager
For this, you need windows installation media. If you don’t have then create a bootable usb / DVD. Now Boot from the installation media select you to prefer language, Time and Currency format, keyboard input method and click next. On the next screen, the windows installation window select Repair your computer.
This will open a troubleshooting window. Here click on Advanced options, select command prompt, and perform command bellow.
C: cd boot attrib bcd -s -h -r bootrec /rebuildbcd
This will rebuild the Bootmgr. Now Type Bellow command to Repair Master Boot Record
bootrec /fixMBR bootrec /fixBoot
After complete all commands type exit to close the windows command prompt.
Perform Startup Repair
After the exit command prompt you are now on the advance option window. Here select troubleshooting and click on Startup repair As shown below image.
This will restart the window and diagnose Startup errors which prevent windows to start normally. During this diagnostic phase, Startup Repair will scan your system and analyze the various settings, configuration options, and system files as it looks for corrupt files or botched configuration settings. More specifically, Startup Repair will look for the following problems:
- Missing/corrupt/incompatible drivers
- Missing/corrupt system files
- Missing/corrupt boot configuration settings
- Corrupt registry settings
- Corrupt disk metadata (master boot record, partition table, or boot sector)
- Problematic update installation
After complete the startup Repair Process windows Restart and Start normally at the next boot. Still having issue fallow next solution.
Disable driver signature enforcement
As per the error message, you can also disable driver signature enforcement and see if that helps you. To do this again you have to boot your system on Advanced options. Choose Startup Settings and click Restart. Here Select the “Disable driver signature enforcement” option ( press F7 Key on keyboard ) and press Enter.
Next time the system will start bypassing driver signature integrity checks and hope you’ll be able to boot normally.
Note : Keep in mind that after the restart, the driver signature enforcement will be enabled again to avoid security risks.
Disable Digital Signature permanently
To Disable The Digital Signature permanently open the Command prompt as administrator. Then Type bcdedit /set testsigning on and press enter. You will receive a “The operation completed successfully” message. that’s all Now close the command prompt window and restart your computer. From now on, you will be able to install or run any unsigned driver or program without problems.
In case you want to enable driver signature enforcement in the future and avoid security risks, then again open Admin Command Prompt, type bcdedit /set testsigning off, and hit enter key.
After Perform the Above Steps when the system Start normally Perform System file checker Utility And DISM Tool To Fix repair Corrupted system files and repair system image. This will avoid the feature problem on windows 10.
These are some of the most working solutions to fix the digital signature for this file that couldn’t be verified error code 0xc0000428 on Windows 10, 8.1, and Windows 7 computers. I hope After applying the above solutions your problem gets solved and windows start normally. While apply these solutions face any difficulty, Then feel free to discuss them in the comments below.