Win4Lin is a discontinued

proprietary software Proprietary software is computer software, software that grants its creator, publisher, or other rightsholder or rightsholder partner a legal monopoly by modern copyright and intellectual property law to exclude the recipient from freely sharing t ...

application for

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

which allowed users to run a copy of

Windows 9x Windows 9x is a generic term referring to a line of discontinued Microsoft Windows operating systems released from 1995 to 2000 and supported until 2006, which were based on the kernel introduced in Windows 95 and modified in succeeding version ...

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the server and business markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RT ...

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...

applications on their

desktop. Win4Lin was based on Merge software, a product which changed owners several times until it was bought by TreLOS Inc. Citing changes in the desktop virtualization industry, the software's publisher, Virtual Bridges, has discontinued Win4Lin Pro.

Products and technology

In 2006, Win4Lin came in three different versions, depending on the virtualization requirements of the user. * Win4Lin 9x allowed the user to run a full copy of

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the second operating system in the 9x line, as the successor to Windows 95. It was Software ...

Windows Me Windows Me (Millennium Edition) is an operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was the successor to Windows 98, and was released to manufacturing on June 19, 2000, and t ...

inside a virtual machine. * Win4Lin Home allowed users to only emulate applications. * Win4Lin Pro offered users the ability to install a fully virtualized

. The Win4Lin 9x/Pro (henceforth the only technology discussed in this section) operates by running Windows applications in a

virtual machine In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization or emulator, emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide the functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve ...

. Unlike

Wine Wine is an alcoholic drink made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented fruit. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the fruit and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Wine is most often made f ...

or CrossOver which are compatibility layers, virtualization-based software such as VMware or Win4Lin require users to have a Windows license in order to run applications since they must install a full copy of Windows within the virtual machine. Unlike VMware, however, Win4Lin provides the virtual guest operating system with access to the native Linux filesystem, and allows the Linux host to access the guest's files even when the virtual machine is not running. In addition to the convenience this offers,

Computerworld ''Computerworld'' (abbreviated as CW) is a computer magazine published since 1967 aimed at information technology (IT) and Business computing, business technology professionals. Original a print magazine, ''Computerworld'' published its final pr ...

found in their 2002 review that Win4Lin gained significant performance over VMware by using the native Linux filesystem, but also noted that this approach (unlike VMware's) limited the installation of only one version of Windows on a Win4Lin machine. When the Win4Lin application starts it displays a window on the Linux desktop which contains the Windows desktop environment. Users can then install or run applications as they normally would from within Windows. Win4Lin supports Linux printers, internet connections, and Windows networking, but , does not support DirectX and by extension most Windows games. They also offered Win4BSD for

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free-software Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). The first version was released in 1993 developed from 386BSD, one of the first fully functional and free Unix clones on affordable ...

History

Win4Lin was initially based on Merge software originally developed at

Locus Computing Corporation Locus Computing Corporation was formed in 1982 by Gerald J. Popek, Charles S. Kline and Gregory I. Thiel to commercialize the technologies developed for the LOCUS (operating system), LOCUS distributed computing, distributed operating system at UCL ...

, and which changed hands several times until it ended in the assets of NeTraverse, which were purchased in 2005 by Win4Lin, Inc. Later that year, they introduced Win4Lin Pro, which was based on a “tuned” version of

QEMU The Quick Emulator (QEMU) is a free and open-source emulator that uses dynamic binary translation to emulate a computer's processor; that is, it translates the emulated binary codes to an equivalent binary format which is executed by the mach ...

and KQEMU, and it hosted

Windows NT Windows NT is a Proprietary software, proprietary Graphical user interface, graphical operating system produced by Microsoft as part of its Windows product line, the first version of which, Windows NT 3.1, was released on July 27, 1993. Original ...

-versions of Windows. In June 2006, Win4Lin released Win4Lin Virtual Desktop Server, later named Win4VDI based on the same code base. Win4VDI for Linux served Microsoft Windows desktops to thin clients from a Linux server. It was integrated into VERDE on March 9, 2009. Win4Lin, Inc. discontinued Win4Lin 9x on May 30, 2006. The Win4Lin Pro Desktop product ceased to be supported in March 2010.

Reception

Many users reported that the 9x version ran windows software at near-native speed, even on quite low-powered machines, such as Pentium-IIs. Nicholas Petereley praised Win4Lin in two of his columns in the year 2000, for its significantly faster performance than its competitor VMware.

References

External links

Win4Lin 5.0 makes big improvements
Linux.com, 2008
Win4Lin Pro Desktop 4.0 lags behind free alternatives
Linux.com, 2007
Break the Hardware Upgrade Cycle with Win4Lin Windows Virtual Desktop Server

Linux Journal ''Linux Journal'' (''LJ'') is an American monthly technology magazine originally published by Specialized System Consultants, Inc. (SSC) in Seattle, Washington since 1994. In December 2006 the publisher changed to Belltown Media, Inc. in Hous ...

, 2007
Run Windows On Linux: Win4Lin Revisited
in4Lin Pro 3.0 review

Tom's Hardware ''Tom's Hardware'' is an online publication owned by Future plc and focused on technology. It was founded in 1996 by Thomas Pabst. It provides articles, news, price comparisons, videos and reviews on computer hardware and high technology. The s ...

, 2006
INQUIRER helps debug Win4Lin Pro
.7

The Inquirer ''The Inquirer'' (stylized as TheINQUIRER) was a British technology tabloid website founded by Mike Magee after his departure from ''The Register'' (of which he was one of the founding members) in 2001. In 2006 the site was acquired by Dutch ...

, 2006
Product Review — Running Windows on Linux
Win4Lin 2.7 vs. VMware Workstation 5.5.1., ''Open Source Magazine'', 2006
Review: Win4Lin Pro
.0 Linux.com, 2005
A Look at Win4Lin 5.1

OSNews OSNews is a computing online newspaper. It originally focused on operating systems and their related technologies that launched in 1997, but is now aggregating consumer electronics news. The content is managed by a group of editors and the owner. ...

, 2004
Review of Win4Lin 4.0

, 2002
VMware Express 2.0 and Win4Lin 2.0: A Comparison Review

, 2001 {{Virtualization products 2000 software Virtualization software Linux emulation software Discontinued software

Products and technology

History

Reception

See also

References

External links