[AccessD] Cheap windows

Yep, for a shop already familiar with Linux what you say makes absolute sense.  For me it makes no 
sense at all, believe me.

It takes a mere 2 hours of my time spent trying to do the Linux thing to pay for the 4 copies of 
Windows I purchased.  About two years ago I spent waaaay more than that trying to get any version of 
Linux installed under Hyper-V and failed.

In the end, it simply doesn't matter that Microsoft makes no effort to get Linux running under 
Hyper-V, what matters is that I know and can do Hyper-V Windows XYZ VMs in a matter of minutes, 
whereas Linux would be a huge time suck which I can ill afford.

Emulators are wonderful things.  I am constantly amazed that VMs work at all.  But to run a linux vm 
and then run Wine in that to try and avoid paying $30 (or $120) doesn't make any sense to me.  I 
cannot imagine that I could get Linux machines running and then get wine running in that and then 
get my app running in that in less than a week, and it could stretch into many weeks given I know 
absolutely nothing about Linux.

I already have Hyper-V running, have learned how to make it work, and have used it for several 
years.  I already have VMs running for my dev machine running C# and SQL Server, where I do my coding.

Since all of my business is with clients running Microsoft software, and since I have spent 30 years 
learning Microsoft software, and the last 5 years learning SQL Server and C#, what is the point?

I understand that those who have a business reason to go with Linux are distraught that the rest of 
the world blindly continues to run MS products but that is the world my clients live in and thus the 
world I live in.  I will never convince my clients to stop using their sql server and Office and it 
is not my business to even try to do so.

So when I found a license for a stripped down Windows 2008 for $30 I jumped on it.  I don't think I 
have ever seen a license for ANY version of windows for $30!  It certainly appears to do what I 
need.  We shall see.

 > Well, you have options.  FoxPro for Windows can run fine under Wine + Linux/FreeBSD. Also, FoxPro 
2.6 for Unix can be installed on Linux and FreeBSD using the Intel Binary Compatibility Standard 
(ibcs2) support library.

Do you have any idea what that sounds like to me?  Are you even speaking English?  It sounds like 
you are coughing up a tarball.  ;)  (tarball is about as much as I know about Linux!)

John W. Colby
Colby Consulting

Reality is what refuses to go away
when you do not believe in it


On 7/1/2012 11:47 PM, Hans-Christian Andersen wrote:
>
>> I need virtual machines which run a Foxpro for Windows application purchased from a vendor.  I purchased these $30 licenses for Windows to run in those virtual machines.  I already have one of the VMs up and running one of these cheap licenses.
>
> Well, you have options.  FoxPro for Windows can run fine under Wine + Linux/FreeBSD. Also, FoxPro 2.6 for Unix can be installed on Linux and FreeBSD using the Intel Binary Compatibility Standard (ibcs2) support library.
>
>> If you are talking about Linux, then free isn't exactly free since I have to spend dozens if not hundreds of hours getting myself up to speed on something I don't use, then getting them to run (running Linux in Hyper-V was non-trivial, I have tried), then getting something like Wine to emulate windows then dealing with any headaches of incompatibility...
>
> We could be talking about FreeBSD as well and, yes, they are both truly free in every sense of the word. If you haven't got the spare time to learn something new or your specifications are too restricting, then this is obviously going to have to be a problem you throw money at. Also, I certainly can't speak about HyperV - it is a Microsoft technology, so we know who is at issue if other operating systems are unable to run under it. :) There are plenty of other options you could choose to go with instead (VirtualBox, VMWare, etc).
>
> Regarding Wine, the great thing about free is that it only takes 10-15 minutes of your time to actually try it to find out if there are any incompatibility issues (but, imo, I'm 99.9% certain you won't have any issues).
>
> In any event, $120 may have worth it to you and it may be cheap compared to what you are used to paying, but it's still not cheap overall. To put things into perspective, $30 is the same price Apple charges for their entire operating system without limitations and Apple users are the ones we normally associate with spending too much money on things.
>
> I'm not recommending you do anything differently, I just think it's a shame you have to spend that much money on something that is a product with deliberate limitations just to run a single application on each, when there are free alternatives out there which are just as good (or better, depending on who you ask).
>
> Hans