Compatibility

This articles describes different compatibility aspects of the software, specifically operating systems, compatibility issues and different workarounds.

All of the applications on this site are developed for Microsoft Windows platform. Even though there is no official support for other platforms apart from Windows, many people have successfully used these applications on Mac and Linux platforms, using so called emulation software.

Vista and 7

Both Windows Vista and Windows 7 include so called User Account Control (UAC) which can help you prevent unauthorized changes to your computer. It works by prompting you for permission when a task requires administrative rights, such as installing software or changing settings that affect other users.

UAC presents a problem for software which was designed in the old days of Windows 9x series of operating systems, which did not include any sophisticated user account control features such as UAC. The most common installation path for software in Windows is Program Files directory, located in path "C:\Program Files" or similar. UAC treats this location as a system folder, hence, forbids normal users from writing to this folder. UAC enforces the requirement for administrative privileges in order to make modifications to the content of this folder.

In the old days, it was a common practice for software to store configuration data and other documents in the installation directory of the application, making everything compact, isolated and self-contained. This practice no longer works in the recent operating systems (such as Vista and 7), because applications are getting blocked out of the installation folder where they normally store vital for the application data.

Another place where UAC will cause problems is the registry, where most of locations are now protected from modifications. Applications have to write to the registry in order to use some of the functionality, for example: automatically start application on login.

Workarounds for UAC issues

Title	Description
Turn off UAC	Open Control Panel and find User Accounts controls, where you can easily turn off User Account Control. Although it helps eliminate the issues, but it comes at a cost of lowered down security.
Run as Administrator	When launching applications, user can specify to run it with administrative privileges. Just right-click on the application icon and select "Run as administrator".
Custom installation path	Instead of installing application into the default and problematic "Program Files" directory, choose a custom path which is not shared by any system applications. For example "C:\Tools\", or even "D:\Programs\" on a another drive if available, and so on.

Mac and Linux

Mac and Linux operating systems are not directly supported, however, there are ways to run and use applications developed for Windows on these platforms.

Brief description of the two possible approaches:

• Compatibility layers - using special wrapping software to run applications developed for Windows inside your native operating system.
• Virtualization platforms - setting up a virtual machine with Windows operating system inside your native operating system.

Below is a list of products which make it all possible. This is not an exhaustive list by any means.

Compatibility layers

Compatibility layers try to simulate a Windows environment for the application by providing alternative implementations of functions of Windows and other necessary libraries. This is a simplest approach but may not work for all applications and possibly not all software features will be usable.

Product	OS	Cost	Description
Wine	Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X	Free	Run Windows applications on Linux, BSD, Solaris and Mac OS X.
PlayOnMac	Mac OS X	Free	Easily install and use numerous games and software designed to run on Windows.
WineBottler	Mac OS X	Free	Turn Windows-based programs into Mac apps.
CrossOver	Mac, Linux	Paid	Run Windows Applications on Linux, Easily and Affordably.

Virtualization platforms

Virtualization allows you to install and run a guest operating systems within your native host operating system. In this case, you can install and run Windows inside Mac and Linux as if it was an application by itself. This approach may be more complex depending of the level of user experience with installing Windows operating system.

Product	Host OS	Cost
VirtualBox	Windows, Linux, Mac, Solaris	Free
Parallels	Mac	Paid
VMware	Windows, Mac	Paid/Free