Wine: MS Money 2004 + IE6

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 12 June 2006 14:37, John Cradock wrote:
> Right, but those sites are few and far between. Even when I work in
> Windows I use Firefox, with the one exception of Windows Update,
> which of course works only with IE.
>
> Maybe I'm too much of a purist, but I really think it's best to
> avoid Wine and use native applications. Otherwise, why not just
> stick with Windows?

There are many many edge cases where someone has to use a Windows only 
app but prefers a Linux OS.

A case in point is Softline Pastel, an accounting package. Here in 
South Africa this is the market leader and everything else is an 
also-ran. Sort of like .doc, without the MS attitude. The server uses 
Pervasive as the db and this runs on Linux quite nicely, but the 
client is Windows-only (a port is in the works, available sometime 
RealSoonNow).

Being able to run this app on wine solves a huge number of problems 
for Linux users, as until recently there just isn't a viable Linux 
replacement for Pastel, and any replacement will be incompatible with 
what the bookeeper and accountant insist on using anyway. And I'm not 
about to reboot into Windows just to be able to print an invoice then 
reboot back into Linux to get real work done.

Process control software is another example - these are custom apps 
and often the source is not available but it's crucial to the 
operation of a company. If you want to migrate a factor assembly line 
to be controlled by Linux but the only software to run the lathe is 
Windows-only, what is one to do other than use wine?

The wine FAQs actually state that these are the very types of cases 
that wine is designed to solve.

OTOH, it's hard to make a case for running MS Office under wine, 
except for testing if wine features work or not.

-- 
If only me, you and dead people understand hex, 
how many people understand hex?

Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five