I had to test/fix something at work and I set up a Windows VM because it was a bug specific to Windows users. Once I was done, I thought, “Maybe I should keep this VM for something.” but I couldn’t think of anything that wasn’t a game (which probably wouldn’t work well in a VM anyway) or some super specific enterprise software I don’t really use.
I also am more familiar with the Apple ecosystem than the Microsoft one so maybe I’m just oblivious to what’s out there. Does anyone out there dual boot or use a VM for a non-game, non-niche industry Windows exclusive program?
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Some industry hardware stuff sadly …
Datalogic DL.Code, Siemens TIA, etc.
If someone has a solution I’m all up for it.
Was some time ago, that I tried with wine, so maybe something has changedGames work quite well in a VM, with GPU passthrough. I use a Windows VM for VR games. The non-game program here being the drivers for my VR headset, which only work on Windows. The games themselves would probably work fine on Linux, so that’s not the issue, but without drivers it’s a no go.
I’ve been a Linux user for a long time. I started to use a lot of open source free software alternatives because of this, and most of them had Windows binaries.
But I always had a dual boot system only for gaming purposes.
So… I can’t think of any software other than games that’s educated la Windows only.
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I have a Windows 11 VM which I keep around. I was forced to use it for iTunes because I needed to sync my old photos onto the phone (fortunately a one time process).
I also played around with RemoteApp because I wanted to use Visual Studio or Office on Linux through the Windows VM, but I have not managed to get it working.
Why couldn’t you just copy your photos? If you need special software to access them or they are stored in the cloud they are not your photos.
They’re not in the cloud, they are on my NAS. I found that you can’t directly copy photos onto an iPhone to show up on the gallery, because there is some sort of database and file naming system. That’s why I had to go through iTunes because it would do it in just this way so that I can see all the photos in the native gallery app.
Any new photos get uploaded to my NAS automatically.
I have a Windows computer in the basement to run one program: The virtual cycling platform Zwift.
But someone made a docker image for it, so even that is tenuous. I fired it up on the Linux system I’m typing this on, and it worked fine.
I’m not very familiar with Docker and the like, though. What if the person that created it decides he’s no longer interested in maintaining it?
Don’t worry. The chances of zwift having major updates and breaking anything is small.
I’m mostly joking, but they’ve been around for a decade and not a ton of progress to show for it
They broke the coffee break with last week’s update… Sigh.
Overall I really like zwift, but sometimes I just want to slap them. Like the newer teleport feature for the robopacers. Great idea. But if you look at the menu in the app, the groups are highest power to lowest power, but then within the groups, it’s low to high. What were they thinking?!
wsl
I wonder what the state of wsl on wine is
… wine on wsl on wine
confused noises
not for me. Teams can be a web app, packet tracer has a linux version.
Not currently running a VM or anything, but I might need to set one up for iTunes and Garmin stuff.
GenoPro. I don’t use Windows for it, as it’s packaged with wine as a snap.
Yeah. I use quite a few windows exclusive programs. I know it is a long list but can’t be helped. Good support and stability beats ideology and these apps provide me that. Here is the list:
I hope this list is helpful to others as well ☺️
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yes, but I don’t use VMs or dual boot. I’ve been able to get everything I need working in Wine, which is a lot more seamless
Acrobat Reader. There are a handful of fillable forms that only really work properly in the official Adobe reader.
There are alternatives
For the life of me, I tried every single pdf reader on Linux, none gets close to Adobe reader, in terms of compatibility, tools and nice UI. Every time I found the perfect one on Linux, days later I realised my collaborators couldn’t see my highlights (or something of the sorts).
After trying 6 or 7 different alternatives for some very important government forms, I gave up and set up a VM. I do use other PDF readers whenever I can, but if someone is using features specific to Adobe Reader (outside the PDF standard), it’s effectively a closed spec and there aren’t alternatives for those documents.
Except for video games, all software I use daily is open source and cross platform by now, but when college demanded for me to use Adobe software, I would boot my Win 10 VM. I also boot that VM to test if the software im developing works well on Windows. I also run my Logitech mouse software in a VM with USB passthrough.
Besides games, I think the only Windows program I run with wine is a tool to extract the BGM from the official Touhou games.
Before I had a 3DS, I would use a Windows tool on my VM to decrypt my totally legally acquired ROMs
Try Piper for your Logitech peripherals.
Looks like my mouse is supported, thanks I’ll try this out
There are none, thankfully. Neither work or home. Last things I’ve had to emulate were probably done diagnostic or update sw for cars and some ide bundled compiler horror for some old and obscure microcontroller.
