Google is preparing to allow it’s Chromebook laptops to officially allow Windows 10 installations
Now Google and Microsoft have never exactly been bed fellows, and Google even created their range of Chromebooks to directly compete against Microsoft Windows. As the very first Chromebooks were essentially x86 based laptops they could be unofficially hacked to run Windows but without any support from either Google or Microsoft. But that maybe about to chance as it appears that Google have started work to officially support Windows 10 on the Pixelbook range of Chromebooks.
Recent entries in the Chrome OS code have hinted toward the fact that an ‘AltOS’ (alternative operating system) option was being made available. Lots of speculation about what OS would be made available was speculated, but some more recent updates mentioning HLK (Windows hardware lab kit) and WHCK (Windows hardware certification kit) seem to confirm that the AltOS would be Windows.
HLK is Microsoft’s official certification program for hardware that can ship with Windows, which suggest that both Google and Microsoft maybe willing to sit around the table to get the Pixelbook to officially be able to run Windows 10 without the user needing to resort to hacks.
Some may question why Google would support their competitors OS on the device, especially when Google’s primary goal of getting people to use Chrome OS is so they can gather personal information to better push ads to their users, and having Windows on them would mean that all that lovely data would be going to Microsoft instead.
But as Google have not yet made any official announcement of supporting Windows 10, it could end up getting pulled before the code is publicly released. If it does make it out into the wild it would make the Chromebooks the ideal software developers tool as they would be able to run software from 4 different OS platforms, ChromeOS, Linux, Android and Windows.