Win4Lin is a Software application for Linux which allows a user to run a copy of Microsoft Windows Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000 or Windows XP applications on their desktop. The system works by acting in a similar way to a virtual machine, in that it provides an environment for the Windows operating system to run, and as such one must still have a legal copy of Windows to use with it.

The Win4Lin application in essence displays a window on a Linux desktop which contains the Windows desktop environment. As an alternative, the Windows environment can be run full screen, outside of the desktop environment to save on desktop real estate.

Win4Lin is designed with business users in mind, and as such, does not support features such as MIDI, in favor of support for Microsoft Office-style application compatibility.

Win4Lin was based on Merge (software) which was originally developed for running DOS/Windows 3.1 on SCO Group. Merge was devised by Gerald Popek and developed by his firm Locus, later taken over by a company called Platinum. The Merge technology was then bought by a company called DASCOM which was in turn bought by IBM. A company called TreLOS was then spun off that continued the development of the virtual machine software and created Win4Lin. TreLOS and LastFoot.com merged in 2000 to form NeTraverse, Inc., the present distributor of Win4Lin.

In early 2005 NeTraverse formed Win4Lin Inc. and introduced Win4Lin Pro - this is apparently based on a tuned version of QEMU, and is intended to host NT-versions of Windows.

=See also=

=External link=