Wine is one of windows emulator applications which are created for running windows applications under Linux. But, even if a big percentage of Windows apps could run on Wine under Linux, that small percentage which cannot run sometimes can be annoying problem.

This post is short tutorial for another solution (not Wine) for running windows apps under Linux. That solution would be installing Windows on a virtual machine under Linux. With this solution you can run Windows apps 100% on Ubuntu. For this purpose there are some necessary tools that you must install on your Ubuntu (or other Linux) before starting anything else. Those tools are:

• Windows installed on Vmware: http://www.vmware.com
• rDesktop: download it from http://www.rdesktop.org/
• SeamlessRDP: download it from http://www.cendio.com/files/thinlinc/seamlessrdp/seamlessrdp.zip and extract in Windows VM into folder c:\seamless\.

How to set Windows VM:

1. Get the local IP (Ipconfig command in DOS/CMD).
2. Give to computer a static IP (Not DHCP) (for ex. 192.168.0.113).
3. Create a new Windows admin user. (for ex. Username: detectorpro, Password: 123456789)
4. In registry editor (run -> regedit) navigate to:
   

   HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Policies -> Explorer. Once there create a new DWORD entry and call it “NoDesktop” and then change it’s value to 1.

How to set Ubuntu:

1. In terminal mode type:
   

   rdesktop -A -s ‘c:\seamless\seamlessrdpshell.exe c:\windows\explorer.exe’ 192.168.0.113 -u detectorpro -p 123456789

2. You will also need to change the IP to your IP and the password (123456789).

Thats it! The remote Virtual windows will be started and you can run any windows application immediately!

Tags | Emulators, Howto, Installation, Linux, Tutorials, Ubuntu