Hi everyone — I recently migrated to Linux Mint and overall my experience has been excellent, but I still rely on several Windows applications (notably SolidWorks, among others). Aside from dual-booting, which I really prefer to avoid, running these programs inside a Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC virtual machine in VMware Workstation appears to be the most viable option. However, I am uncertain how to implement this setup and whether it is the optimal solution. What would you recommend I do?
Really, that’s still the case for wine in 2025? It runs most things very well, including 3D
The 3D stuff around games is actually the smaller problem. It’s performance critical but it’s basically “just” one API (bundle) to implement that then covers a big chunk of the game’s implementation.
Productivity software usually consists of a shit ton of other stuff. They would probably render fine, but then they ship with a weird ass licensing management system that will deny to work. Or parts of or even a whole app use .NET and suddenly you have the complexity of all the WinAPI calls hidden behind .NET Framework. Maybe the app does a few lowlevel WinAPI calls themselves on top, that Wine didn’t need to implement so far. Or the app you want to run is only distributed via Windows Store as UWP; the necessary APIs also haven’t been implemented yet.
Wine is awesome, but it’s not fully covering all the shit Window’s APIs offer.