Win4Lin

Win4Lin was a proprietary software application for Linux which allowed users to run a copy of Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000 or Windows XP applications on their Linux desktop. Win4Lin was based on Merge software, a product which changed owners several times until it was bought by Win4Lin Inc. Citing changes in the desktop virtualization industry, the software's publisher, Virtual Bridges, has discontinued Win4Lin Pro.

In 2006, Win4Lin came in three different versions, depending on the virtualization requirements of the user.

Win4Lin Pro used "full" virtualization, whereas Win4Lin 9x was an example of paravirtualization.

The Win4Lin 9x/Pro (henceforth the only technology discussed in this section) operates by running Windows applications in a virtual machine. Unlike Wine or CrossOver which are emulation-based, 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 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 as of 2000^[update], does not support DirectX and by extension most Windows games.