Editing Win4Lin (section)

==Products and technology==
{{expand section|Win4VDI|date=February 2014}}
In 2006, Win4Lin came in three different versions, depending on the virtualization requirements of the user.<ref name="suse"/>

* Win4Lin 9x allowed the user to run a full copy of [[Windows 98]] or [[Windows Me]] inside a virtual machine.<ref name="suse"/>
* Win4Lin Home allowed users to only emulate applications.<ref name="suse"/> 
* Win4Lin Pro offered users the ability to install a fully virtualized [[Windows 2000]] or [[Windows XP]].<ref name="suse"/>

The Win4Lin 9x/Pro (henceforth the only technology discussed in this section) operates by running Windows applications in a [[virtual machine]].<ref name="sams"/> Unlike [[Wine (software)|Wine]] or [[CrossOver]] which are compatibility layers, virtualization-based software such as [[VMware]] or Win4Lin require users to have a Windows license in order to run applications since they must install a full copy of Windows within the virtual machine.<ref name="bushong"/>

Unlike [[VMware]], however, Win4Lin provides the virtual guest operating system with access to the native Linux filesystem, and allows the Linux host to access the guest's files even when the virtual machine is not running.<ref name="sams"/><ref name="bushong"/> In addition to the convenience this offers, [[Computerworld]] found in their 2002 review that Win4Lin gained significant performance over VMware by using the native Linux filesystem, but also noted that this approach (unlike VMware's) limited the installation of only one version of Windows on a Win4Lin machine.<ref name="bushong"/>

When the Win4Lin application starts it displays a window on the Linux desktop which contains the Windows desktop environment. Users can then install or run applications as they normally would from within Windows. Win4Lin supports Linux printers, internet connections, and Windows networking, but {{as of|2000|lc=yes}}, does not support DirectX and by extension most Windows games.<ref name="infoworld"/>

They also offered Win4BSD for [[FreeBSD]].<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.freebsdsoftware.org/emulators/win4bsd.html |title = win4bsd FreeBSD | website = The FreeBSD Ports Archive | url-status = dead | archive-url =  https://web.archive.org/web/20170215084833/http://www.freebsdsoftware.org/emulators/win4bsd.html | archive-date = February 15, 2017 | access-date = February 4, 2025}}</ref>