Microsoft Windows Alternative?

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dapaq2

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Hello Group,

Currently using Microsoft Windows 10, does anyone know of an alternative operating system to Microsoft Windows that will properly run windows programs? The alternative operating system must also have .net framework.

Thank you,
Doug
 

jwt873

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You can also use wine to run Windows programs under Linux.. Microsoft makes an open source cross platform .NET replacement called Mono framework. Home | Mono

But as buddrousa points out, this is NOT plug and play and not all Windows programs run under Wine.

Do you need to run Windows programs? There are many open source programs for Linux. Unless you have some specific Windows only programs, you can get by quite nicely under Linux.

Personally, I've been running Linux as my main desktop since 2000. I have a laptop with Windows installed for those Windows-exclusive programs that don't work under Wine.
 

dapaq2

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I do not believe that IOS and Wine are an option for me.

Yes must run windows programs. I have some programs that only run on windows and the author has no intentions of offering their programs to work on MAC anytime soon.
 

jwt873

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Windows is the only operating system that will run Windows programs natively. All others need some sort of emulator... Like wine (which is not an emulator :) )

The software you have is made for windows, and you have a functioning Windows 10 computer... Why do you want to run another operating system?
 

dapaq2

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Two way radio programming software made by Kenwood, iCom, Motorola, Bendix King and other manufacturers are the windows software programs that I am currently using and are what the alternative operating system would need to run. Tired of windows os, Microsoft just doesn't make a very good or stable operating system and would like to find a better operating system to run these windows programs. Until these manufacturers decide to write their programs for Apple MAC OS, if ever...
 

Rred

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Windows is a family of OSes, not one OS. And everything that emulates some version of Windows, has limits usually more so than the actual version of Windows would.

Windows 95/98/ME was actually a shell that ran on top of DOS. WindowsNT v.5 was shipped as Windows2000. XP was NT5.1, the same basic program with some extensions and patches. The rest has been Windows NT6.x, until Windows 10, which should be called NT7.

And every one does things differently. Especially if you have older 16-bit Windows programs, which used to be supported in the 32-bit versions by a process called "the Thunker", which in turn has been dropped from 64-bit versions for arbitrary reasons.

So running other OSes that claim to emulate Windows? Good luck with that, sometimes some things work but you will bang up against limits.

For some things like old radio control software, they may need a real DOS environment, and no version of NT actually provides that. NT provided a pretty good DOS emulator, that's being replaced in the latest versions of Win10 as well.

Nothing wrong with iOS or *NIX. But none of it is a great emulator.
 

corbintechboy

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Any GNU/Linux distribution is good. Some are easier then other for sure. Check out distrowatch.com.

FreeDOS can run DOS software just fine and you can run it in a virtual machine. You can even run Windows in a virtual machine.

I have been using Linux since around 1999 and no regrets. I have 4 laptops here and all of them are running Debian testing just fine.

I have a Windows virtual image on my NAS (Windows 10) If I ever need. Perhaps in the summer to run GrLevel3 radar software. I got 16GB of ram on my main laptop so I can allocate pleanty of memory to the virtual machine.

So yes, there are options and I would argue the options are better then Windows anyways, But that's me and even though I am a bit of a Linux fanboy, I say use whatever works for you.
 

jwt873

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why do I have to have a reason... I want to try other options.

Trying other option is a good and valid reason to migrate from Windows. :)

What you might want to do is boot a live Linux CD so you can try out the OS.

You download an ISO file, burn it to a CD, put the CD in your CD player, tell your computer to boot from the CD drive and then reboot.

Once you do this, you'll be running Linux. Since it's running from the CD, there will be no changes done to your windows installation. Take the CD out and reboot and you'll be back to normal.

If you really like it, you can partition your hard drive and install Linux. Then you can boot to either Windows or Linux. Once you get used to Linux, you can blow away your Windows partition :) .. Or you can keep it and boot to it when you need to run Windows natively.

Here's a good writeup on running a live CD https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD
 

N4GIX

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But if it will not run the windows programs that I use then it's NOT a windows alternative option for me...
Therein lies the major problem I have as well. I use some very expensive software as a 3d CAD modeler and avionics systems programmer. As a result, I long ago made a conscious decision to stick with Win7 until either I or my computer system(s) die... :lol:
 

corbintechboy

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But if it will not run the windows programs that I use then it's NOT a windows alternative option for me...

Run a virtual machine then. You will have a fully working Windows environment inside Linux.

Really, these sort of posts sorta bother me. You have worked with Windows and you want a Windows replacement and you expect Windows as the replacement.

I mean, really. Linux is not Windows just as an Apple device is not Windows. Any work that has been done on both platforms is basically a hack to help people who want to try and use Windows programs on these platforms.

A virtual machine machine is painless if you are serious about your endeavor. If your machine has the power to do such things there is really no point in not doing it if you are serious.

You could also look here:

https://www.codeweavers.com/products/
 
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