[ale] VM ? (addendum: without windows licenses?)

[Byron A Jeff]

On Mon, Feb 26, 2007 at 10:59:37PM -0500, Michael B. Trausch wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-02-26 at 18:44 -0500, Paul Cartwright wrote:
> 
> > hmm... my DELL didn't come with a CD, it's on that stupid rescue partition.
> 
> 
> I hate that.  
> 
> However, by way of technical restrictions, I am not permitted to
> actually use my license of Windows in any way that I want.  In essence,
> Toshiba and Microsoft are telling me that I am not allowed to run this
> copy of Windows in an emulated environment, implying that I have to buy
> a new Windows XP license to do that.  

It's for this reason that I'm only interested in envinronments that doesn't
require a copy of Windows to run.

Does anyone have an accurate representation on the usefulness of Wine and/or
Crossover? In the past I just haven't had enough patience to fiddle with
either of them in order to see if they actually work with any degree of
reasonableness. I generally spend my focus working with native Linux apps,
which I feel is worth the time to fiddle.

But the reality is that we live in a world where most folks believe that
Windows is inexorably bound to their computers. So as with the OP who is 
fine working with Linux, the SO is not. She needs that one or two Windows
applications that she cannot live without.

I'm working with a couple of non profits who are in somewhat of the same
situation. There's a couple of custom applications built in VB that one
would like to run remotely from a central applications server. Costing out
terminal server and CALs is a real headache. A Linux applications server
for windows applications without Windows licenses would be a real benefit.

In short, I'd like to get the ability to run the occasional Windows app without
having to have a Windows license. 

Anyone doing this?

BAJ