Linux Journal: VMware Express 2.0 and Win4Lin 2.0: A Comparison Review

“Each of these offers a way to access Windows applications from
a Linux desktop, and I will evaluate each based on performance in
test applications, including Microsoft Office, Microsoft Internet
Explorer, Adobe Photoshop, Apple QuickTime and id Software’s
Wolfenstein 3D. These four packages were selected for their ability
to, in combination, bring a wide range of systems to their knees
and find compatibility issues in all types of system and emulation
software. These applications will be tested on my current test
machine, a P3 560 with 384MB of RAM running Mandrake 7.0. I have
six primary considerations while evaluating each product:
compatibility with DOS/Windows applications, stability both inside
the emulator and of the emulator itself, interoperability with the
Linux environment, resource efficiency, ease of use and support
(but not necessarily in that order). After the individual
evaluations, I will include some direct comparisons, a summary and
errata that didn’t fit anywhere else….”

“Both VMware Express 2.0 and Win4Lin 2.0 are solid products and
worthy of consideration by anyone needing legacy Windows
application compatibility. If you are looking for a Windows
compatibility solution, I would advise that both be carefully
considered. The two most important considerations are application
compatibility and resource usage. If system memory and disk space
are very limited (i.e., you have 64MB or less of memory or less
than 1GB of free space on your hard disk) I recommend Win4Lin. If
instead you need rock-solid stability and the best application
compatibility available, I recommend VMware Express. Both products
have downloadable demos available from their respective web sites,
so a careful evaluation of each will cost you little more than a
few hours of experimentation.”

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