How to Run Android OS on PC, Laptop or Netbook

How to Install Android OS on PC, Laptop or Netbook

Android is said to be most booming and widely used OS on mobile platform as of today. The OS design and developed by Google, is preferred choice of large number of smart phones users all along. Good part is that now its possible to run this OS on your PC, Laptop or for that matter Netbook as well by following the simple steps as outlined below.

What all you need?

In order to run Android on PC or Laptop, you’ll need a memory device such as pen drive or USB flash drive. Make sure that the flash drive that you are using is having the capacity of more than 256 MB, so that it can accommodate the bootable image of Android OS. You also need to download the x86 platform compatible image of Android from the Internet.
Secondly you’ll need UNetbootin, which is nothing but universal Net Boot Installer. This can be also promptly downloaded from the respective site.

Steps in detail

Step 1 – Download UNetbootin

Go to Unetbootin site i.e. www.unetbootin.sourceforge.net. UNetbootin is available for Windows, Linux or Mac. Please download the version depending upon the Operating System of your PC, Laptop or Netbook.

 

Step 2 – Download the Android image

Go to the site www.android-x86.org/download, scroll down and locate the stable release section in the download option provided. Here you need to download the Android x86 platform compatible image depending upon your hardware.

The file size for the image is around 73 MB so it might take some time for the image to download, depending upon the net speed at your place.

Step 3 – Run UNetbootin and transfer the image to flash drive

Locate the UNetbootin executable file that have been downloaded and click on run. You shall be presented with the screen as shown below:

Here as you can see there are two options – Distribution and Diskimage. Check Diskimage radio box and choose the path, where you downloaded Android x86 iso file. In type option you need to select the USB drive. Click OK.

As you can see, the file start extracting and image of bootable Android shall be copied to your flash drive. Also make sure that before using the flash drive for this chore, you need to erase all the previous data or better format it.
Once the process is complete, you shall be asked to boot the system. You may choose to boot the system now or defer it.

Step 4 – Change boot preference settings in BIOS

Once you decide to restart the system, you need to make a minor change in you system’s BIOS settings. As you might be aware the default boot option is from hard drive or your internal hard disk. You have to change it to Boot from Removable Device (USB Flash Drive). You can enter your System’s BIOS setup by pressing F2 (or any other key depending upon your system). In case if F2 doesn’t works, you might have to check out system’s User Manual to find out the process to enter the BIOS arrangement.

Step 5 – Power on the System

Once BIOS settings has been taken care of, Power on the system as usual. Make sure that the USB flash drive is in the proper USB slot. If everything goes fine, you’ll be presented with the screen as below:

Select option – Run Android without installation. It may take a few minutes before the System actually boots up with Android. On successful boot up, you can see the Android UI as below:

You can play around with the Android, install apps or change settings as by default Android should have access to you net connection. Only thing that you need to remember is that once you shut down the system, all the apps that you installed or setting changes will revert back to standard. So go ahead, explore Android or just show off to your friends!