(Edit: Sorry mods - I sent this email earlier from the wrong email address.) On 15/Nov/2009, at 17:03 , David Giles wrote:
Hi,
I run Mandriva as my main operating system, but on a second computer I have windows 98 to run a small [windows only] accounting program. Can I join the computers together and operate the accounts program through Linux?
The program will run on a Mack using virtual PC. Does linux have a similar program and would windows have to be loaded onto the computer?
VMWare is the tool that I would recommend for doing this - install VMWare server[0] or VMWare Workstation on your Mandriva machine and I would try using the VMWare converter[1] to attempt to convert the physical machine into a virtual machine. The VMware site makes no mention of Win98 being supported for conversion, so YMMV. With VMWare, you keep your existing linux installation and install windows "within" a virtual machine. So far VMWare seems to have filled the gap for doing this work, and the licensing allows use free of charge. My preference for this type of task would be VMWare server 1, as it contains a native tool for display the virtual machine, however VMWare server 2.0 will display the screen through a browser plugin - this can be frustrating if you have an older computer running linux however as the computing requirements for VMWare server 2.0 are higher than for version 1. Alternatively there is VirtualBox (a Sun project - I can't recall off the top of my head how the licensing works for Virtual box) Parallels, as I recall, is the product that the Mac used to use to run Windows on the local machine - however I think this now forms part of Microsofts offering (I'm not 100% on this) If you can get the converter to convert your existing machine then you will not have to load windows into the machine as the tool will do that job for you. If the converter doesn't work, then you will need to install windows itself. Please note that you will need to be aware of the licensing requirements for Windows 98. HTH, Wazzä