UEFI firmware settings tile not appearing

Good luck! I was hoping to upgrade my toshiba laptop, but since "secure boot" cannot be implemented in the laptop, I don't think I will ever upgrade. I hate the idea of "secure boot", and I am not the only one.

Secure boot is not a requirement to run Windows 8, even for UEFI boot. I've been running Win8 with UEFI on my laptop which does not support secure boot. I'm not sure what people are getting worked up about with regard to secure boot (on x86, that is). The firmware is preventing people from hijacking the boot process and circumventing the early-boot antimalware protection built in to Windows 8. Remember boot sector viruses? Not possible anymore with secure boot enabled. Even Google's doing similar things with the Chromebooks. They do firmware validation of the boot loader too.

So according to what you are saying, I shouldn't be concerned about "secure boot", and I should be able to run w8 Pro 64-bit on my laptop even though UEFI is not implemented on my BIOS, right? Let us know and thanks.

Yes you can run windows 8 pro 64bit without secure boot and without UEFI, they are simply extra features that are not required.

Thank you. Let me know if I can buy at least one upgrade using the stupid "upgrade assistant", for the last time I tried to do this I was not able to get the download or complete the transaction. On top of that, my credit was charged twice since I had to submit the transaction twice, for I thought I made a mistake typing the credit card information. And now I am hesitant to use another credit card to do this.

That's weird I used paypal for mine and didn't have a problem with the download. Google search how to do a clean install with the upgrade option and that will let you burn an actual windows 8 disk for upgrading with or doing a clean install.