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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QFIL aka Qualcomm Flash Image Loader but only because the rooting of my XR headset (Lynx) https://lynx.miraheze.org/wiki/Rooting_Process relies on it.
I’ve done it successfully so now I understand a bit better how it works. I could try to use instead https://github.com/bkerler/edl which looks even more complete and reproducible.
Games 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.
SolidWorks, fusion360, codesys (plc programming) and many other enterprise grade software sadly only really work on Windows. They do however work okay through a VM but annoying to deal with.
Games now work surprisingly well on Linux so i have no problems there except Sims4 that my girlfriend plays seems to be windows only when bought through origin gamestore
And dont suggest frecad for cad work. Sadly It’s seriously not even close to being competitive.
You can get Fusion360 to work okay-ish in Wine. Probably not good enough for professional use but for my hobby use case it works well enough (sometimes a bit laggy but usable). this does most of the heavy lifting in getting it installed.
Unsurprisingly it is the gigantic EA application which breaks Sims 4 most of the times. It crashes, Steam notices non zero exit and gives up.
EA isn’t so managed so they don’t even reach MS to stop pushing alpha/beta updates to stable version of their apps via Winget. So you can guess how much they will care about Linux issues. I mean Steam guys won’t really hack their binaries to fix it so it is up to them.
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 ☺️
Underrated comment.
I run Scrivener, which is a writing software that’s only for Mac & Windows (well, there is a Linux version but it’s ancient), but I just run that through Wine rather than a VM. That’s about the only thing I haven’t found a good equivalent for on Linux though.
Altium
Printer drivers for high DPI printing.
I’d still have to have a Windows VM even on Windows for this though, as they only work up to Windows 7.Not currently running a VM or anything, but I might need to set one up for iTunes and Garmin stuff.
Nope.
Directory Opus
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.
Visual Studio (Not VS Code), C# is fantastic these days cross-platform wise and a pretty solid general language
But the non-ms IDEs for it…are lacking…and MS just terminated MacOS support for VS (Not that it really mattered the macOS version was a bastardized version of VS anyways) so I don’t think their flagship is coming (officially) to Linux anytime soon.
Rider has just been better in every way imo. I haven’t touched VS in years.
It does cost but you also get a permanent licence for the version you paid for so you can pay for a year and keep that version.
Really? JetBrains Rider is great IMO. Though you do have to pay for it.
You have to pay for visual studio too if it is for business use (the license is also SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive than rider)
My coworker uses VS and it seems like the IDE is doing nothing - every time I open one of his projects in rider 85% of the code is highlighted with suggested optimizations and refactors that VS thinks is fine
Admittedly it’s been awhile since I last checked on it, when I last checked it was missing a few of the hot nice features like hot reload (Which, you’ll need to take from my cold dead hands, because I love it lmao)
My experience has been very much the opposite. Windows is terrible for any development, even windows applications.
Yeah I second Jetbrains Rider. It’s fantastic on Linux and dotnet development has never been better with it. The only lacking thing is WPF but there’s open source alternatives that are actually cross platform and integrate just as well (AvaloniaUI).
I use an old copy of Photoshop CS5 via VMWare and Windows 10 installed in it. Unfortunately the Gimp doesn’t have adjustment layers and the Selective Color feature. I can’t live without these two features, I need them on each and every scan of my paintings to fix colors.
It’s a requirement for my Business Comms course to use Word, to the point where the prof will walk around to ensure you have Word open. The online version is awful and often drops sentences when I type so I dont use it. I could never get the darn thing working over WINE or Cassowary, so I have a VM that basically just runs that.
I hate to be a widows advocate but they do keep improving the online version all the time so if you have not tried it in a long while maybe try again to see if some of the issues have been fixed. I feel like it gets better and better every time I (accidentally) open documents in the browser. It’s still crap in general but that’s more of a general word thing.
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?!
