Android is an open-source operating system originally designed for mobile devices. But many independent developers have modified it to work with desktop and notebook computers too. We have already posted previously about RemixOS (now discontinued) and Phoenix OS – both of which are Android variations for the desktop computers. Most of these Android variations are based on the Android-x86 project which is plain vanilla version of Android.
While Android-x86 does not come with all the bells and whistles, it is always up-to-date and keeps up with the AOSP versions. At present Android-x86 project has been updated to the Android 8.0 Oreo code. And it is ideal for quickly installing on your hard drive. It allows auto-installing Android on your hard drive only in three steps without requiring any input from the user. Here is how:
- Prepare bootable USB pendrive for installing Android-x86 by first downloading the ISO file from www.android-x86.org and then using Rufus with your pendrive. You can also burn the downloaded ISO to a blank DVD.
- Boot from the Android-x86 installation media created in step 1 above. In most of the modern computers, you can do this by pressing F12 at boot and selecting the bootable drive.
- From the Android-86 boot screen menu, select Advanced options.
- Select Auto-installation – Auto Install to specified hard drive from the next screen.
- Choose Yes from the confirmation dialog to proceed with the installation.
- A few minutes later, the installation will be done and you can now reboot your computer to start using the freshly installed copy of Android-x86.
Android 8.0 Oreo based releases of Android-x86 have some glitches at present (April 2019). If you want a stable version of Android-x86, then you can try Android 7.x Nougat releases.