Is it possible to run Windows software applications inside Linux?

Monday, September 06, 2010 , 1 Comments

tux dressed up as a wizard holding a wand with windows logo smoking up

Making a transition from Windows to Linux is never a walk in a park for a new user, specially for a non-technical person. Attracted by the obvious benefits Linux has over Windows users make the switch, but they are left scratching their heads wondering what software to use for the simplest of task. Normally, either people are so used to the Windows applications that they find it very hard to use the Linux alternatives or sometimes they simply are unable to find the right alternative.

So, in order to make this transition easy, Linux developers have came up with some softwares that make Windows software run on Linux. This helps the new user and makes the transition to Linux fairly easy. There are two ways through which you can run your Windows software on Linux:

1. Run a Windows software in a virtual environment

To directly run the windows software under Linux I will recommend the use of Wine for a new user. Wine can be found in the repositories of many major Linux distributions and is very easy to install and run. Once installed on your computer Wine allows the execution of .exe files and you can run Windows applications as if they were installed directly on your Linux Distro.

Just go to you distro's package manager and search for Wine, or visit Wine's Official Website.

2. Run Windows it self in a virtual environment and run the required software on it

It is possible to install Windows inside Linux itself, for this purpose I will recommend the use of VirtualBox, another easily available software which is easy to use for a beginner. Once installed, you can run VirtualBox to create a virtual platform (imaginary computer computer running inside Linux) and can install Windows on it. Later you can do everything you can do on Windows within that virtual system.

For a new user I will suggest the first option as the VirtualBox can be very confusing and hard to set up.

Got more questions about Linux? Read the following:

Iqrash Awan

Some say he’s half man half fish, others say he’s more of a seventy/thirty split. Either way he’s a fishy bastard.

1 comment:

  1. DropshipperNovember 18, 2011 at 9:26 AM

    Thank you, thats very interesting information. I need to share with my friends.

    ReplyDelete

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