Anyone using Win4Lin Pro? (V5 I think)

[Ben Scott]

On 8/10/05, hewitt_tech <hewitt_tech at comcast.net> wrote:
> Because we have certain applications that will only run under Windows, I was
> thinking about picking up a copy of Win4Lin Pro. Is anyone using it and if
> so, what are your impressions?

  I haven't had a chance to try Win4Lin Pro yet.  But I've heard and
read some.  W4LP is apparently a completely new product.  Despite the
name, it has little to nothing in common with the "Win4Lin" product
(AKA "Merge").  W4LP is apparently similar to VMware in design and
function.  Both are fairly complete VM implementations, but both also
entail a fairly heavy performance hit.  Since VMware has been around
much longer, I would expect it to be the more mature product.

  Win4Lin (sans "Pro") is also a VM, but one specially designed to run
Win95/98/ME.  It has been around, in one form or another, for years
and years, and is fairly mature.  Given the more limited design scope,
it is able to achive much better performance then with W4LP or VMware.
 It also does some neat things with filesystem integration with Linux.
 If the software you need to run will be happy running on Win9X,
Win4Lin is a good alternative.

  All three products are VMs.  You do a full install of Windows into
the VM, just like you would on a real machine.  You need the Windows
license, too.  This achieves much better compatibility then something
like Wine, which is a re-implementation of the Windows runtime
environment.  Of course, when it works, Wine is much faster then any
VM, and you often don't need a Windows license.

  Hope this helps,