The double boot of Windows no longer seems likely on Pixelbooks



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The Google Pixelbook.
Enlarge / The Google Pixelbook.

A little less than a year ago, there were signs that Google was changing the firmware of its Pixelbook laptop to allow dual booting on Windows 10. The firmware has been updated to allow the Pixelbook to boot into a "alternative operating system" ("AltOS" mode). The work included references to the Windows Hardware Certification Kit (WHCK) and the Windows Hardware Lab Kit (HLK), Microsoft's test frameworks for Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 respectively.

Google now seems to have abandoned this effort. A redditor called crosfrog noticed that the AltOs mode was now obsolete (via Android Police). Pixelbooks will only be for Chrome OS.

The double-boot job was underway as Project Campfire. It seems that little development work has been done on Project Campfire since last December. This suggests that Google has actually decided not to bother with the double boot several months ago.

In some ways, Project Campfire has emphasized how strange Pixelbooks are. Pixelbooks are almost only well specified and well built compared to other Chromebooks, and they have the storage and computing power to run Windows comfortably. In general, other Chromebooks simply do not have enough storage space to run Windows with Chrome OS. As such, it was not a development that would do much for the larger Chrome OS community. Similarly, it is not really clear that Project Campfire would do much for Google, because it is unlikely that the company is very interested in people who buy a Pixelbook only to run a non-Google operating system. .

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