winapps-org/winapps

WinApps is a project that lets you run Windows applications such as Microsoft 365 and Adobe Creative Cloud on a Linux machine, with the windows for those programs appearing alongside your Linux windows as if they were native. The README shows it working on the KDE Plasma, GNOME, and XFCE desktops on Linux. Under the hood, WinApps installs a copy of Windows inside a virtual machine using Docker, Podman, or libvirt. It then asks that Windows install which programs are present, creates Linux shortcuts for the ones you want, and uses a tool called FreeRDP to draw each Windows program as its own window on the Linux desktop. From a user point of view it looks like opening Word or Photoshop locally, but the actual program is running inside the hidden Windows VM. The README lists several conveniences that come with this setup. Your Linux home folder is mounted inside Windows so files are shared automatically. There is integration with the Nautilus file manager, so you can right-click a file in Linux and open it with a Windows program based on its file type. A separate taskbar widget project gives you a panel for managing the Windows side and launching apps. Microsoft Office web links opened on Linux are routed to the Windows version of the app. The project claims support for every Windows program, because it scans the Windows registry for any installed executable and creates a shortcut for it. A community-maintained list provides higher-quality icons and file-type associations for popular apps such as the Adobe suite, Affinity apps, File Explorer, and Command Prompt. The README is upfront that kernel-level anti-cheat systems used by some games are not supported. WinApps is a hard fork of an earlier project by Fmstrat.