Install Windows on a Chromebook in 2019: Campfire dead, what still works?

Early indications on Google developer code commits suggest that the early Project Campfire dual-boot solution are dead. They'll be winding down the program immediately. Now it's time to speak about what we'll be able to run instead. We begin with one very helpful sort of keyword: Chrulrabook.

In August of 2018, a light shone in the darkness. It was called Project Campfire, and it looked like it'd really bring dual-booting operating system abilities to Chromebooks of many sorts. But not all Chrome fans agreed. Some even thought dual-booting on Chromebooks would effectively sign the death order for the hardware.

Now, here in May of 2019, it would appear that the fire is going out of the universe, and we are all that's left of their religion, so to speak. Evidence of the drop came from subreddit Crostini, by user Crosfrog. By all indications it would seem that Google's Campfire experiment has become cancelled.

On that note, you might want to have a peek at the the Crostini wiki and make VMs, containers, and related tools (for ChromeOS and Chromium) your own. There's a whole lot of information there and it's been very, very well organized.

If you head over to the Chrultrabook subreddit you'll find some very helpful information on the future of Windows on Chromebooks. They've also discussed running a Linux Distro on a Chromebook. And don't be fooled by the first several posts, as they're pinned to the top. New threads start a few posts later.

If you're looking for a solution that involves running virtual machines – Windows elsewhere – you'll want to take a peek at this Chromium project. Then there's always the fallback solution from Google, one that's worked pretty well for the past half-decade or so: remote desktop on Chrome.

If you'd like to discuss this or any other solution in a Google-monitored environment, head over to the Google Chrome Help Community and get busy with the chatter.