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14 July 2011

Running Windows apps on Ubuntu

Since you have now tried Ubuntu and now are getting used to it but you still miss some of your Windows apps which you used for years before but don't find them now on Ubuntu? "WINE" which stands for "Wine Is Not An Emulator" is an application for Debian distros which can run most of your Windows application on Ubuntu. This is a life saver and will allow you to completely shift to a new OS. But it does have a drawback i.e you cannot run "all" your apps with wine which you could on Windows. WINE has some limitations and has its own .dll files. It supports most of the applications and needs .dll files for some which don't. WINE has an "Application Database" which lists the currently supported applications by wine and also shows the ones which don't work.
To find out weather your app would work with WINE just Google your app name and add winedb in front of it. It will lead you to a page in wine's application database and you can find out what you need to do to get an app working.
To install wine just Open up your Ubuntu Software Center > enter WINE in its search box and install it.

Installing any Windows application with wine is quite simple, copy the desired .exe windows executable file to Ubuntu partition like your desktop right click on it > Permissions > check Allow Executing File as Program


Note that if you try to check Allow executing file as program option and it gets unchecked again it means your .exe file is not on Ubuntu partition.

There is also winecfg which stands for Wine Configuration Tool. With this tool you can select your desired screen resolution for a particular app or apply a new windows theme, change sound, video settings etc. winecfg can be opened by typing winecfg in terminal or Application > Wine.

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