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Date:      Sat, 05 Mar 2005 10:06:08 -0500
From:      Mike Jeays <Mike.Jeays@rogers.com>
To:        Chuck Swiger <cswiger@mac.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Please help if you can
Message-ID:  <1110035167.650.12.camel@chaucer.jeays.ca>
In-Reply-To: <4229C4FC.1020503@mac.com>
References:  <001501c52197$14127760$6501a8c0@chris> <4229C4FC.1020503@mac.com>

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On Sat, 2005-03-05 at 09:41, Chuck Swiger wrote:
> Chris wrote:
> > I would like to know if this OS platform supports your everday and ever so
> > standard .EXE applications.
> 
> Yes, FreeBSD will run standalone executable code in the various .exe and .dll 
> formats, although people often use Wine or a similiar emulator if they want to 
> have a more complete Windows environment available while using FreeBSD.

Surely not.  I have never heard it suggested before that FreeBSD will
run Windows .exe binaries directly.  I would have thought that you would
have to use Wine or Crossover Office.
> 
> > Basically, I am wondering if FreeBSD is compatible to all of the endless
> > softwares out there that "require" you to be using a certain version of
> > Microsoft Windows?
> 
> All of the software?  No.
> 
> Not that most Windows software is portable enough the run on all flavors of 
> Windows itself: there's plenty of old 16-bit stuff which won't work on a 
> modern Win32 platform (WinXP, 2003, etc), just as there is a huge amount of 
> stuff written today which won't run on Windows 3.1.
> 
> That being said, FreeBSD doesn't come with the Windows DLL's that many 
> programs use.  But they and other resources like TrueType fonts can be used if 
> you migrate them, and if you check the ports collection you you find ways of 
> using Flash and RealPlayer and video codec stuff like that if you really want 
> to.  Stability may suffer somewhat compared with purely native FreeBSD apps, 
> but if people want to view websites in Flash (or be advertised to, more 
> accurately), they can.
> 
> See http://www.freebsd.org/ports/
> 
> > I'm not a computer genius (though for some reason many label me as that)
> > but I know my way around the Windows platform quite well. I am not an
> > advanced programmer in any sort, but I do try and have several different
> > types of programming software.
> 
> Don't worry about it-- I promise that we won't call you a computer genius if 
> you don't want us to.  I make no comment on what might happen in the converse 
> situation, but I suggest verifying your sense of humor beforehand.



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