Advanced

Win4Lin Delivers Windows 2000 and Windows XP on Linux

Posted by VISITOR on · 4 comments
Press release
Mail this story
Print this story

Win4Lin Pro Becomes Flagship Product for Running Windows Applications on Linux LinuxWorld Boston 2005

BOSTON--Feb. 16, 2005--Win4Lin, Inc., a leading supplier of virtual operating systems on Linux, today announced the release of their Win4Lin Pro(TM) product which runs Windows 2000 and Windows XP applications on Linux. Win4Lin Pro becomes the flagship of the company's Win4Lin product family, which also includes Win4Lin 9X(TM), Win4Lin Terminal Server(TM) and Win4Lin(TM) Home. Win4Lin, Inc. recently acquired the assets of NeTraverse, Inc., the original developers of Win4Lin products, and is ambitiously extending the product family.

"With Win4Lin Pro, Linux on the desktop has just become a reality. Previously, enterprises and users needing to migrate legacy Windows applications to Linux were stuck with either an expensive porting task or with clunky, non-integrated virtual machine solutions, or, in the case of Win4Lin, with running Windows 98. Now, with Win4Lin Pro's full support for Windows 2000 and XP, all of the barriers to adoption have been removed," said Jim Curtin, President and CEO of Win4Lin, Inc.

"For the last couple of years the objection we've heard most often was, 'you only run on Windows 98.' Today, that objection has been removed. You are now free to move to the Linux desktop while continuing to run your critical Windows 2000/XP applications."

Using Win4Lin's high performance virtual computing environment (VCE), Win4Lin Pro runs any Windows 2000 or Windows XP application with no change to the host operating system (e.g. no need to patch the Linux kernel). Win4Lin Pro runs as a Linux process, sharing the Linux memory and file system without yielding control to the Windows guest operating system. With the stable Linux architecture as its foundation, Win4Lin Pro protects PCs from Windows viruses and other prevalent forms of malware. Win4Lin Pro limits the impact of a Windows system failure or security flaw to only the virtual sandbox in which the applications are running. Thus Windows malfunctions cannot cause system- wide failures.

"Win4Lin Pro is an outstanding achievement. I believe your product to be superior to all of the other approaches for providing Windows support on Linux. And your responsive team makes it a pleasure to work with you," said Jim Provan, COO, ThinDesktop, Inc.

Win4Lin Product Family

Other products in the Win4Lin family include Win4Lin 9X(TM), Win4Lin Terminal Server(TM) and Win4Lin(TM) Home. Win4Lin 9X provides migration support for enterprise users moving from Windows to Linux by allowing the execution of applications that cannot be ported to Linux (i.e. missing source code, too expensive) with full support for networked environments. Win4Lin Home is a lightweight version of Win4Lin 9X that provides the standalone or home user with the ability to run needed Windows applications on Linux. Win4Lin Terminal Server is the company's enterprise solution for delivering Windows applications on thin clients via a Linux server. Unlike Citrix (CTXS), or any of the other Windows-based remote display vendors, there is no need to add Windows servers to run the Windows applications as Win4Lin Terminal Server serves Windows sessions from Linux servers.

Product Pricing & Availability



Win4Lin Pro(TM) is being offered at an introductory price of $99.95 per copy until March 31, 2005. First customer ships of the product have begun, with general availability and quantity shipping to commence on February 23, 2005.

For more information and ordering information visit [HYPERLINK@www.win4lin.com]

The shipping release of Win4Lin Pro fully supports execution of Windows 2000 applications on Linux. The company plans to aggressively issue enhancement releases to add additional features for Win4Lin Pro, including enhanced support for Windows XP.

For more information about Win4Lin, Inc. visit [HYPERLINK@www.win4lin.com]

Press contact:

Dan Perlman, VP of Marketing
650-430-1463

  Nav
» Read more about: Story Type: Press Release

» Get new stories by e-mail: nightly or as they are published

« Return to the newswire homepage

  Related stories
» More like this

Comments (4)

Ok...Hypothetical situation here. Pretend I'm a new Linux user....

So I spend 89 bucks on Linspire to have one of the most "Windows Like" experiences..then I subscribe to their updates and package repository for X dollars each month so I don't break the install that I just paid 80 bucks for...then I pay 99 more bucks so I can run Windows XP apps? That's putting my total at OVER what it would cost me to run Windows XP Home.

What are we telling the average desktop user here? To have interoperability you're gonna have to pay through the nose? Hopefully, they'll find a free distro or one that costs 10 bucks so their pocketbook doesn't get reamed.

I think this price is a bit out there...I sure hope they slash it for the sake of new Linux users. Me? I'll stick with OOo and Cedega.
I agree with the folks who say that products like this undermine interoperability and F/OSS development. This is hardly a scientific sample, but two famous examples are BitKeeper and nVidia. What's so magical about BitKeeper that a F/OSS versioning system can't replace it? I think there is less energy and motivation going into the free systems because it's easier to use BitKeeper.

And the same for nVidia- the path of least resistance is to use their products and proprietary, binary drivers. Again, less energy and motivation going into pestering hardware manufacturers for Linux support, and developing good video for Linux.

It's obvious to me that the main obstacles to hardware and software vendors supporting Linux is the secret hand of Microsoft. Breaking that grip is going to take a lot of nagging from customers, and quality F/OSS alternatives. Kludges like Win4Lin are useful, but I wonder what would happen if that energy and resources were devoted to developing native Linux apps? There is no shortage of good projects to support.
Yes but some people have seen the light.

http://www.pchdtv.com/hd_3000.html

an HD tuner card for Linux. The windows drivers though included are no more than beta's. drivers pre-compiled for Fedora, source code included for other Linux distro's.

Production can barely keep up with demand, because in July The broadcast flag must take effect.

They are being sold to Linux users, who want HDMyth TV.
I wish Belkin would see the light, ive just spent hours trying to get their F5D7000 wireless card to work in slackware 10.1 They dont do a native linux driver, so ive just spent yonks getting ndiswrapper to load belkins windows drivers. Eventually got it all working but what a hassle, at least getting my pci-e nvidia card to work was a cinch proprietary drivers or not.

Post a comment

A free account is needed to post. Write your comment here first: your text is kept in this browser while you sign up or log in, and is waiting for you when you come back.

Your message:
|||||
10
Markdown: **bold**, *italic*, [text](https://link), - lists, > quotes, $x^2$ for math. Formatting help

Sign up and post (it is free)  or  Log in and post