Easy when you Intrigued by the idea of running Chrome OS ona Windows computer, Robert Irvine tries to... Tum an old laptop into a Chromebook swith green olives, Ed Sheeran Aes have mixed feelings about Chromeooks. Yes, they're easy to use, Jess vulnerable to malware infection than Pcsand offer excellent battery life, but there's something about them find hard to love. Perhaps its the lack of customisation options, their inability to run traditional software or that you can't ddo much with them offline - aside from play the Chrome dinosaur game, When in former employer reclaimed my company-Issued Chromebook, I barely batted an eyelid, but when they tred to take my (wel, thelr) beloved Windows laptop, [sulked so much they eventually said “just keep the darn thing”. When my employer reclaimed my Chromebook, Ibarely batted an eyelid However, Ido think a Chromebook makes a fine second computer (provided ‘you have a primary Windows PC), so ‘was intrigued to read about Google's new Chrome OS Flex project (wwwsnipea. ccom/40965), This lets you run the ‘web-based operating system on your PC or Mae, initially from a USB stick but ‘with the option to replace Windows or ‘macOS permanently if you wish. In effect, Chrome OS Flex lets you turn an old laptop into a Chromebook for free, so {Thad nothing to lose by giving ita whirl ‘To get started, | registered my details at ‘wwwsnipca,com/ 40967, including fake company information, Chrome OS Flex is really intended for businesses and 7416-29 March 2022 - Issue 627 schools, and because t's at the ‘early access’ stage of development, Google says “you may experience some instbil Neither of those caveats was enouigh to ‘uit me offs I licked Try Chrome OS Flex Free, followed by the button to "View ‘the installation guide. ‘This page provided helpful instructions ‘on how to create a USB installer for the ‘operating system. inserted a USB stick “with the required 8GB of storage, then as instructed - installed an extension called Chrome Recovery Utility from the Chrome Web Store (www:snipea ‘com 40969). wasn't reassured by the add-on's two-star rating but i installed ‘without any problems and I followed the steps to create a bootable version of Chrome OS. When asked to specify the make and model of my (non-existent) Chromebook, I chose Chrome OS Flex in the dropdown menus, clicked Continue and selected my USB tick. I noted the ‘warning that creating a "recovery image’ ‘would wipe all the data from my stick, and clicked ‘Create now". Chrome Recovery Utility got to work, and 10 minutes later my recovery media - ‘meaning Chrome OS Flex - was ready to use [plugged the USB stick into my old Dell laptop and pressed F12asit started up, 0 amin access to the boot menu. Your “boot ey’ may vary: see wwwsnipea.com/ 40974 Robert successfully ran Chrome OS Flex onhis Windows laptop, but he hast committed to keeping it to ee which key to press for different makes of computer. | selected ‘UEFI: USB, Partition 12° under UEFI Boot, pressed Enter and within seconds my computer ‘was weleoming me to Chrome OS. Well, actually it welcomed me to CloudReady, ‘which isthe software Chrome OS Flex is. based on - Google clearly hasn't got round to changing the name yet. I now had the choice either to install CloudReady 2.0 and convert my Windows laptop into a Chromebook, or try it first from USB. I prudently chose the latter, ‘connected to my Wi-Fi network and accepted Google's terms of service. I then signed into my Google account and skipped the options to allow ‘hardware data collection’ (seriously Google, give ita rest), activate Google Assistant and ‘eonneet my phone. | clicked ‘Get started’ and finally entered. the exciting world of Chrome OS Flex (Gee sereenshot), Was | impressed enough totum my laptop into a fully functioning. Chromebook? No, because I can get most of the same features using the standard Chrome browser in Windows. However, the new operating system felt very fast, hhad.a simple, streamlined design and was surprisingly free of bugs. And if change my mind, it's only a USB stick away. Need help with turing an i iapton tntoaChromesook? Letus know: noproblemacomputeractv ck Next issue: Robert changes Windows’ theme to match the weather