Windows 10 on Librem 14

Today I wanted to test the performance of Windows on Librem 14. I got a Windows 10 Boot USB, plug it it and Librem does not recognize the contents of it.

Has anyone successfully installed Windows 10 on Librem 14?

1 Like

Please wash your mouth out with soap and water. :wink:

3 Likes

Based on some other threads here I was expecting that, but let us focus the review aspect of it! :smiley:

1 Like

I have read that PureBoot is not compatible with Windows, so you need the Coreboot with SeaBIOS firmware. Which firmware do you have?

1 Like

I have Coreboot with PureBoot - which explains things as I would prefer to retain Librem Key functionality.

Thanks for the pointer!

So that is likely to be painful.

If you want to commit to Windows then reflash with vanilla Coreboot and lose the boot integrity checking that the Librem Key / Purism gives you (but get the boot integrity checking that Windows gets you) or, facetiously, lobby Microsoft to support the Librem Key boot integrity checking (in addition to its own).

(I mean that wouldn’t be terrible functionality for Windows to have, I just don’t think Microsoft is likely to be interested and if they were, they would introduce their own proprietary boot key that only works with Windows and computers that come with Windows by default.)

If you want to dual boot then I don’t think it is possible to keep Pureboot. (So if you only want Windows for the occasional things-that-only-work-on-Windows then you are probably better off with a separate cheap Windows laptop for that purpose.)

You might try running a VM inside Linux (and run Windows in the VM), while keeping the Pureboot firmware and the boot integrity checking. Perhaps that is the best option if you can get it working.

1 Like