Win4Lin Pro updated [LWN.net]

From:		"Sharon Smith" <sharon-AT-win4lin.com>
To:		pr-AT-lwn.net
Subject:		WIN4LIN PRO? UPDATED FOR FULL WINDOWS XP SUPPORT AND BLAZING FAST PERFORMANCE
Date:		Mon, 02 May 2005 14:15:31 -0600

http://www.win4lin.com


Contact Information: 
Dan Perlman
VP, Marketing, Win4Lin
dan@win4lin.com
408-426-8009
  
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: May 2, 2005
  


WIN4LIN PRO? UPDATED FOR FULL WINDOWS XP SUPPORT AND
BLAZING FAST PERFORMANCE

New Release Delivers Major Upgrade to Flagship Product

AUSTIN, TX ? Win4Lin, a leading supplier of enterprise
virtualization solutions on Linux, announced today the
immediate shipping of Win4Lin Pro 1.1, a major upgrade to
the company?s flagship product.   New in the product is
full support for Windows XP, file system integration and
major performance upgrades.

While Win4Lin Pro, as it was released in February, provided
full support for Windows 2000, support for Windows XP was
termed ?experimental?.  Win4Lin Pro 1.1 lifts that
restriction and provides full support for Windows XP.
 Users can run Windows XP applications and the operating
system on their Linux platform.  

Since Win4Lin Pro leverages the Open Source QEMU
architecture, Win4Lin product developers have also taken
advantage of KQEMU, the free accelerator to QEMU by
allowing Win4Lin Pro users to make use of the module.
 KQEMU provides both performance and compatibility
capabilities that benefit the Win4Lin Pro user.  In this
release of the product there is now also full integration
between the Linux and Windows filesystems for user
documents and settings.
.
Using Win4Lin?s high performance virtual computing
environment (VCE), Win4Lin Pro runs Windows 2000 or Windows
XP application with no change to the host operating system
(e.g. no need to patch the Linux kernel). Win4Lin Pro runs
as a Linux process, sharing the Linux memory and file
system without yielding control to the Windows guest
operating system. 
"With this significant update to the Win4Lin Pro line,
Win4Lin not only adds great new features, but now for the
first time supports the full line of Windows desktop
operating systems for business," said Jim Curtin, CEO of
Win4Lin. "With XP support, organizations can now leverage
the best of both worlds; the familiarity and investment in
legacy Windows environments together with the security,
reliability and compelling economics of Linux".
Pricing and Availability

Win4Lin Pro 1.1 is available immediately and at no cost to
all users who have purchased Win4Lin Pro since its launch
in February.   

Registered users should follow this link to download
Win4Lin 1.1:

http://www.win4lin.com/index.php?option=com_content&t...

To celebrate the release of Win4Lin Pro 1.1, the product is
being offered at a special price of $119.99 until June 1,
2005 at which time the list price for the product will
become $139.99.

For more information and to purchase, please visit:

http://www.win4lin.com/redirects/win4linpro.html

Win4Lin Product Family
 
Other products in the Win4Lin family include Win4Lin 9X?,
Win4Lin Terminal Server? and Win4Lin? Home. Win4Lin 9X
(formerly Win4Lin 5)  provides migration support for
enterprise users moving from Windows to Linux by allowing
the execution of applications that cannot be ported to
Linux (i.e. missing source code, too expensive) with full
support for networked environments. Win4Lin Home is a
lightweight version of Win4Lin 9X that provides the
standalone or home user with the ability to run needed
Windows applications (like Quicken® and TurboTax®) on
Linux. Win4Lin Terminal Server is the company?s enterprise
solution for delivering Windows applications on thin
clients via a Linux server. 

About Win4Lin

Win4Lin is a leader in technology for creating
virtualization on Linux.  With Win4Lin Virtual Computing
Environment (VCE), the company supplies Fortune 500
enterprises, educational institutions and desktop users
with solutions that allow them to run the Windows operating
system and Windows applications on Linux in true Windows
sessions.  

Win4lin, Win4Lin Pro, Win4Lin 9X and Win4Lin Terminal
Server are trademarks or registered trademarks of Win4Lin,
Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their
respective owners.
###

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Win4Lin Pro updated

Posted May 5, 2005 5:21 UTC (Thu) by horen (subscriber, #2514) [Link]

Great. Wonderful. I'll take two.

Except that Win4Lin Pro, like its older brother Win4Lin (now called Win4Lin/9x), still does not provide Right-to-Left language support, which continues to disenfranchise the billion-plus inhabitants of our planet who do all/part of their reading/writing in any of the many flavors of Arabic, or those of us who do so in Hebrew.

VMware has had RTL support since its first release, and the price difference between it and Win4Lin Pro is chump-change.

As the saying goes: "Two billion Chinese can't all be Wong." What's it going to take for Win4lin to provide RTL support -- another billion Muslims?

And yes, I've been a Win4Lin user since Day One.

check your facts, horen

Posted May 5, 2005 13:07 UTC (Thu) by heunique (guest, #728) [Link]

With all the previous versions of win4lin (not including the PRO) - your statements were true. The old win4lin was actually "patching" windows 9x/ME to make it work, but it didn't support double-byte versions of Windows (Hebrew/Arabic/Thai/Farsi).

With win4lin pro it's a totally different story.

Win4Lin Pro uses QEMU code to install and run Windows 2K/XP in your Linux. Win4Lin has some differences between standard QEMU and Win4Lin pro (like IDE implementation, etc), so you can install Windows 2000 and XP and use right to left languages such as Hebrew, Arabic, etc. Heck - I have it running here with Word XP with full Hebrew support.

One thing though - if you compare VMWare 5 for workstations VS Win4Lin Pro 1.1 - you'll find VMWare 5 is WAY faster then Win4Lin Pro, although VMWare price is a bit higher (it costs $189, compared to Win4Lin Pro $119 price).

Thanks,
Hetz

PS: I'm not affiliated with Win4Lin, but I'm hosting the QEMU forum and the daily snapshots of QEMU (check it at http://m2.dad-answers.com/qemu-forum )