https://liliputing.com/2018/08/would-you-dual-boot-windows-on-a-chromebook-if... Windows Apps are coming to ChromebooksI tell you about this stuff early, then we all track it as it arrives. All of Android and all of Linux have now arrived on Chromebooks with us tracking it together as it happened, so you know about how this one is going to happen.
Next thing coming to Chromebooks are Windows Apps, and they are coming to the beefier spec'd Chromebooks starting sometime around Christmas time ..... with MS Office likely being the very first item to jump over. MS is pushing hard to require a SEPARATE Win 10 license for the Chromebook, a "required purchase" if MS gets their way.
FOSS is pushing for use of Wine code and the use of REACTOS base code instead of a full installation of Win 10 OS from Mickeysoft the way Mickey wants it to happen.The Google code name for this effort is Campfire (Apple users from years back will get the semi-ironic Campfire reference). Campfire involves existing legal physical copies of software (dvd or CD based software can be put on USB sticks) and downloaded live copies of licensed legal MS software. It is being done as part of ChromeOS by Google, so it is and remains totally on the up and up.
Google is slowly breaking down the MS Office monopoly layer by layer while at the same time MS is trying to build it up and bind it all up even tighter and tighter together, now by actually owning the machines in question and locking down software to the individual hardware that resides on "their" machine.
Many people will not allow MS to take over legal ownership of their machines through a carefully and cleverly written EULA statement.Enough MS functionality is already available in Wine and is also available in Reactos right now to support older versions of MS Word and older versions of the rest of the Office softwares completely separate from MS, while certainly not requiring the special Chromebook MS Win 10 installation/license that Mickey is currently wanting to have happen at this point in time.
I for one think MS Office actually hit its peak at Office 2007 / Office 2010 and MS Office software has declined yearly ever since then. For me, drop down menus simply work a lot better than multiple copies of overly busy ribbon bars ever could, the six deep ribbon bars currently used struck me as confusing, distracting and intrusive and space wastingly STUPID when they first came out, and that opinion really hasn't changed very much over the years.
And I think that the newer Word document save formats that actually require MULTIPLE FILES for each document (each saved separately) to be build up to the finished document were nothing more than a gimmick to lock in an entire generation of Word users into having to upgrade their machines and software.Plus, I find the doc system used by FOSS Libre Office to be quite usable, I can use Libre Write with no more real effort on my part than it would take to re-look up the old Office 2007 commands & menu locations.
FOR EXAMPLE, on my big Linux box the defaults for Libre Office are set to match up my wife's favorite MS Word version so she can open and save her docs to and from my machine with no extra thought on her part. The only complaint she has made is "Your menus are funny" but she can use it just fine when she sits down at my machine.
What makes this all work together now on Chromebooks, when it couldn't in the past ???Chromebook processors have all gotten a lot stronger, and Chromebook systems memory has grown to be large enough to hold it all Mickey style. The newest generations of Chromebooks all include 128 to 258 gigs of on motherboard SSD memory courtesy of the new fast inexpensive SSD chipsets that solder directly on to the motherboard (chip is about the size of a large postage stamp).
These were developed by Samsung for cell phones, btw ......This MS Software using evolution of Chromebooks is intended to ease Google's way into the Business world, and it is being done very logically and completely on the legal up and up. MS's reaction (new leasing of machine and software and rolled over to a locked down software hardware set up) is a move that IT managers as a whole ARE NOT GOING TO TOLERATE.
The IT managers will simply send the nonsense over to Legal for litigation, as they know they have over 10 years remaining on their existing current licenses and matching service agreements ........
A Chromebook is always less expensive than a Windows machine, and it now runs ALL forms of software with the exception of the Apple Mac stuff, which nobody really wants to do that all that much anyway. Those few that do want to run Apple Mac software on Windows machines use Virtual Box software to do so ..... so yes it can be done if you really really want to do it.
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