To start, some background: The first thing I did when I got my Encore was find a way to install a clean copy of Windows 8.1 without all the bloatware. I removed all the partitions and let Windows Setup repartition the drive. I did this again when Windows 10 went RTM. This gave me a much larger C: drive than stock, and if you haven't repartitioned your drive then a considerable amount of space is probably being taken up by a recovery partition.
I have tried several different installation methods for RemixOS. If I installed it on the primary partition "C:" then I couldn't find a way to boot it. I tried messing with the BCD and UEFI with various tools to try to get it to show as a boot option in the Windows bootloader, but it didn't work (either I couldn't get it to show up, or it did but thought it was Windows and failed to boot). Because it is 32-bit UEFI I couldn't use EasyBCD + Neogrub. The installer that comes with Remix doesn't do anything notable on this machine (it does add boot options, apparently, but they never display). One problem with this device is that even if you add something to the UEFI boot menu, when you go to the boot menu you will still see only 2 options, even if the entries are there: the SSD and the USB drive. Eventually I found a way to install it by shrinking my C: drive partition and creating a FAT32 partition. This is one of the more popular options right now, but it has some drawbacks when your total storage is only 29GB (or less) when formatted. The biggest drawback is that you are limited to a data.img of 4GB because that is the biggest file size FAT32 supports. Finally today I found what is, to me, the best option for this device and it may work well on similar devices with 32-bit UEFI. After completion you will have a tablet that can dual boot with a simple menu that doesn't require you to make a lot of selections on boot to get to your OS, you will still only have one large partition, and you can have a data.img of 8GB or more.
Eventually this process will probably be streamlined a little more as RemixOS progresses. Maybe they will provide a boot menu option that works with their installer. If not, if I can find a way to install the bootloader that the Androidx86 puts on there I will just do that and skip the installation of Androidx86 altogether. If I can figure out a way to add RemixOS to the Windows bootloader that actually works, I will do that (and I mean properly, right under Windows, not hidden away as an optional boot device).
This process borrows heavily from this page, so credit is largely due to Nirmal Sarkar for handing me the keys. I will also be resharing his download links, or some of them.
Prep:
1. Download RemixOS, obviously--I got the normal 64-bit UEFI download, it works fine. You can also grab the one from the deodexed/pre-rooted thread, it also works
2. Download and install 7-Zip
3. Download and install EasyUEFI
4. Download the Androidx86 Installer
5. Download the Androidx86 ISO
6. Disable secureboot
Install:
1. Extract the RemixOS ISO from the zip
2. Open the Androidx86 Installer and select the Androidx86 ISO
3. Install Androidx86 to C:, choose your data.img size; if you already have a Remix data.img then make it small so it takes less time to install and then delete it and replace it with your Remix data.img later
4. Open the folder C:\AndroidOS\ and delete "system.sfs"
5. Run 7-Zip and open the RemixOS ISO, then extract "initrd.img", "kernel", "ramdisk.img" and "system.img" to C:\AndroidOS\ and overwrite the files that are there
6. Go to "C:" and rename the folder "AndroidOS" to "RemixOS"
7. Save the following as a text file named "grub.cfg"
then move it to the root of your C: drive so that you have "c:\grub.cfg"--you will need to approve a UAC prompt for admin rights to do this since C: is protected (If you want Remix to be the first option, cut the code for the Windows menuentry and paste it below Remix--and if that instruction doesn't make sense to you you probably don't wanna mess with it)
8. Open a command prompt with admin rights and type the following commands:
and press "y" to confirm
9. Open EasyUEFI--you should see an entry for Android-OS--move it to the top of the boot order
Now you're done. Reboot. You should see the grub boot menu. Press vol+ key to select Remix and Home/Windows key to boot it.
I have tried several different installation methods for RemixOS. If I installed it on the primary partition "C:" then I couldn't find a way to boot it. I tried messing with the BCD and UEFI with various tools to try to get it to show as a boot option in the Windows bootloader, but it didn't work (either I couldn't get it to show up, or it did but thought it was Windows and failed to boot). Because it is 32-bit UEFI I couldn't use EasyBCD + Neogrub. The installer that comes with Remix doesn't do anything notable on this machine (it does add boot options, apparently, but they never display). One problem with this device is that even if you add something to the UEFI boot menu, when you go to the boot menu you will still see only 2 options, even if the entries are there: the SSD and the USB drive. Eventually I found a way to install it by shrinking my C: drive partition and creating a FAT32 partition. This is one of the more popular options right now, but it has some drawbacks when your total storage is only 29GB (or less) when formatted. The biggest drawback is that you are limited to a data.img of 4GB because that is the biggest file size FAT32 supports. Finally today I found what is, to me, the best option for this device and it may work well on similar devices with 32-bit UEFI. After completion you will have a tablet that can dual boot with a simple menu that doesn't require you to make a lot of selections on boot to get to your OS, you will still only have one large partition, and you can have a data.img of 8GB or more.
Eventually this process will probably be streamlined a little more as RemixOS progresses. Maybe they will provide a boot menu option that works with their installer. If not, if I can find a way to install the bootloader that the Androidx86 puts on there I will just do that and skip the installation of Androidx86 altogether. If I can figure out a way to add RemixOS to the Windows bootloader that actually works, I will do that (and I mean properly, right under Windows, not hidden away as an optional boot device).
This process borrows heavily from this page, so credit is largely due to Nirmal Sarkar for handing me the keys. I will also be resharing his download links, or some of them.
Prep:
1. Download RemixOS, obviously--I got the normal 64-bit UEFI download, it works fine. You can also grab the one from the deodexed/pre-rooted thread, it also works
2. Download and install 7-Zip
3. Download and install EasyUEFI
4. Download the Androidx86 Installer
5. Download the Androidx86 ISO
6. Disable secureboot
Install:
1. Extract the RemixOS ISO from the zip
2. Open the Androidx86 Installer and select the Androidx86 ISO
3. Install Androidx86 to C:, choose your data.img size; if you already have a Remix data.img then make it small so it takes less time to install and then delete it and replace it with your Remix data.img later
4. Open the folder C:\AndroidOS\ and delete "system.sfs"
5. Run 7-Zip and open the RemixOS ISO, then extract "initrd.img", "kernel", "ramdisk.img" and "system.img" to C:\AndroidOS\ and overwrite the files that are there
6. Go to "C:" and rename the folder "AndroidOS" to "RemixOS"
7. Save the following as a text file named "grub.cfg"
Code:
set timeout=5
menuentry 'Windows' {
search --file --no-floppy --set=root /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
chainloader (${root})/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
}
menuentry 'RemixOS' --class android-x86 {
search --file --no-floppy --set=root /RemixOS/system.img
linux /RemixOS/kernel root=/dev/ram0 androidboot.hardware=remix_x86_64 androidboot.selinux=permissive quiet DATA=/RemixOS
initrd /RemixOS/initrd.img
}8. Open a command prompt with admin rights and type the following commands:
Code:
mountvol b: /s
b:
cd efi
cd android
copy c:\grub.cfg grub.cfg9. Open EasyUEFI--you should see an entry for Android-OS--move it to the top of the boot order
Now you're done. Reboot. You should see the grub boot menu. Press vol+ key to select Remix and Home/Windows key to boot it.
