A developer shared a way to dual boot Windows 10/11 and Chrome OS on a Chromebook with an AMD Ryzen processor.
Note that there are easier ways to get the Windows experience on your Chromebook, including virtualization apps like Parallels Desktop. And you shouldn’t get too high hopes that Microsoft’s OS and apps will run smoothly on a Chromebook, especially if you’re using one of the many lower-spec Chromebooks, as this method isn’t officially supported. You should exercise caution and be aware of the Chromebook’s manufacturer’s warranty before deciding if you want to use the developer’s guide.
As reported via Reddit and spotted by XDA Developers on Monday, a developer known as Coolstarog has reportedly forced Windows and Chrome OS to dual boot on a Chromebook using AMD 3 3250C, Ryzen 5 3500C and Ryzen 7 3700C processors and an AMD Athlon 3015ce APU. The HP Chromebook 14b, HP Chromebook Pro c645 Enterprise, and Chromebook Lenovo Yoga C13 are reported to have been successfully tested.
However, there are some limitations. First, the Chromebook requires an SSD as UEFI cannot boot from eMMC storage (however Coolstarog said eMMC can be read and written from Windows).
You also can’t sign in with fingerprint or facial recognition when dual booting Windows 11 or Windows 10 and Chrome OS and on AMD systems. The developer said all other key features work, including a bootable and functional SSD, keyboard and keyboard backlight, touchscreen, HDMI and USB-C video, ports, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
As noted by the XDA developers, we already knew that you can dual boot Windows and Chrome OS on some Intel-based Chromebooks; this confirms the Team Red Chromebook’s ability.
To get dual boot working, Redditor redistributed Chrome OS with Chrx, a command line installer used to dual boot Linux on Chromebooks. They then updated the Chromebook RW_LEGACY firmware using the MrChromebox script. Finally, they used their own shared script to complete the process.