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How to Run Windows Apps on Linux

Start Here: It’s Probably Already Solved
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Most people who stall on switching to Linux® stall over one program. A design suite, a CAD tool, an accounting package, a game.

Before working out how to run it, it’s worth knowing how much of this problem still exists. As of January 2026, around 90% of Windows titles on Steam run on Linux, roughly 106,000 games out of 117,881. Firefox, Chrome, Steam, Spotify, Discord, Slack, Zoom®, VS Code, OBS, Blender, DaVinci Resolve and LibreOffice all have native Linux versions. Others, like Microsoft 365, work through a browser exactly as they do on Windows.

For a lot of people the honest answer is that there’s nothing to solve. For everyone else, this page covers what to do.

Step 1: Check Whether You Have a Problem at All
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Three quick checks. None of these need any extra software, so they’re worth doing before you set anything up.

Is there a native Linux version? More software ships one than people expect. Check the vendor’s download page before assuming.

Is there a web version? Microsoft 365 and Photoshop both run in a browser. Not identical to the desktop app, often sufficient.

Would a different program do the job? Sometimes the honest answer is yes. Archive tools, media players, PDF readers and text editors swap out without anyone noticing. Sometimes it’s firmly no, and that depends on what you actually use the program for, not what category it sits in.

Be careful with swap-it-out advice. Most “use this instead” lists match programs by category, which assumes you use an application the same way the person writing the list does. Two people can rely on the same program for completely different work and get opposite answers. Judge a replacement against the specific things you do, not against the name on the box.

If all three come back no, you’ll need something to run the Windows program itself. There are three approaches, and the rest of this page covers them.

Option A: Translation Layers (Proton, Wine, CrossOver)
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A translation layer runs a Windows program directly on Linux, with no copy of Windows involved anywhere.

How does that work without Windows? A Windows program spends its life asking the operating system to do things: open a file, draw a window, play a sound. The translation layer listens for those requests and answers them the way Windows would. The program never knows the difference. Nothing is emulated, so there’s very little speed penalty.

Three products do this, and they’re all the same thing underneath.

Wine is the free, open-source project the other two are built on. It has been in development since 1993.

Proton is Valve’s build of Wine, included in Steam. For games this is usually the whole answer: enable it, install, play. It’s why the 90% figure above exists.

CrossOver is a commercial build of Wine with paid support and easier setup.

Check your app before setting anything up. Two databases have the answer: WineHQ’s Application Database for general software and ProtonDB for games.

Use this when it works. No Windows license, no second operating system to maintain, and apps sit in your normal menu alongside everything else. It is comfortably the lightest of the options here.

The limit: compatibility is case by case. Some apps are flawless, some install and crash, some refuse outright. Competitive games with kernel-level anti-cheat are usually a deliberate no. Check the databases rather than guessing.

Option B: Real Windows, Running Inside Linux
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When translation isn’t enough, you run genuine Windows in a virtual machine. Compatibility stops being a question: if it runs on Windows, it runs here, because it is Windows.

What’s a virtual machine? A computer inside your computer. It has its own pretend processor, memory and disk, and a real copy of Windows installs onto it exactly as it would onto a physical PC. Both systems run at once and you switch between them like any other window. No rebooting.

One useful side effect applies to every option in this section: a virtual machine sidesteps the Windows 11 hardware requirements. It presents Windows with a virtual TPM, so a machine Microsoft refused to upgrade will happily run Windows 11 inside VirtualBox, virt-manager or Hyperpane. Only dual-booting can’t do this, because that installs Windows on the bare hardware where the missing chip actually matters.

There’s one catch, and it decides everything: by default a virtual machine gives Windows an emulated graphics card. For a spreadsheet that’s invisible. For CAD, video editing, 3D or games it’s the difference between working and unusable.

Fixing that means graphics passthrough, where Linux hands the virtual machine a real graphics card instead of an emulated one. It works, and setting it up by hand is genuinely difficult: the right hardware, the right BIOS settings, and a stack of configuration that has to be exactly right.

What’s graphics passthrough? Instead of emulating a graphics card, Linux steps back and hands Windows a real one. The performance penalty largely disappears and demanding software runs close to how it would on a normal PC. The difficulty is that it needs the right hardware, the right BIOS settings, correct IOMMU grouping, and a stack of configuration that has to be exactly right or the machine won’t boot properly.

So the practical question isn’t whether to use a virtual machine. It’s whether you’re going to configure passthrough by hand.

Hyperpane
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Hyperpane is our answer to that, and it’s the reason the company exists. We worked through passthrough by hand, decided nobody should have to repeat the experience, and spent the next few years turning it into something you click through.

It sets up the virtual machine, installs Windows for you with a local account and no Microsoft account required, configures graphics passthrough through a graphical interface instead of config files, and checks your hardware first so you know what will work before you start.

Three things it handles that you’d otherwise be arranging yourself:

  • Installs Windows with a local account, automatically. No Microsoft account, no setup interrogation, and no manual workarounds or registry edits on your part.
  • Telemetry blocking, built in. Hyperpane blocks it at the boundary by default, so the Windows install can’t phone home about what you’re doing.
  • DocFS gives you file-level control. Nothing else offers this. You decide what Windows can see: your whole home folder, one folder, or nothing beyond files you explicitly share. Unshare a file and it disappears from Windows immediately.

It’s $25, a one-time purchase, with a 14-day free trial. The quickest way to find out whether it works on your machine is to try it.

Option C: Dual Booting
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Install Linux alongside Windows and pick at startup.

Good for: full native speed on both sides, perfect compatibility, nothing to configure.

The catch: one at a time. Needing a Windows app means saving everything, restarting, waiting, doing the thing, restarting back. Most people quietly stop bothering and end up living in whichever one boots first.

If you’re here from Windows 10, weigh this one carefully. Dual booting keeps that Windows install on the disk, and it stopped getting security patches in October 2025. Booting it occasionally to run one legacy program is a reasonable trade. Keeping it as your everyday second system means living with something unpatched. Dual booting is cleanest when the Windows side is a supported install.

Comparing Them
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FeatureHyperpaneDual-BootingVirtualBoxvirt-managerParallelsWineProtonCrossOver
Run All Windows Apps✓✓✗✓✓✗✗✗
Run Windows Apps Without Windows✗✗✗✗✗✓✓✓
Run at Near-Native Speed✓✓✗✓✗✓✓✓
Run Without Rebooting✓✗✓✓✓✓✓✓
Easy Graphical Setup✓✗✓✗✓✗✓✓
No TPM Required✓✗✓✓✓✓✓✓
Built-in Telemetry Blocking✓✗✗✗✗———
Seamless File Sharing✓✗✓✗✓✓✗✓
Graphics Passthrough Setup✓✗✗✗✗✗✗✗
Runs on Linux✓✗✓✓✗✓✓✓

Picking, in One Pass
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  • Games: Proton via Steam. Free, already there, most of your library works. Check ProtonDB for the specific titles you care about.
  • Your app is green on WineHQ: Wine or CrossOver. Lightest, no Windows license.
  • Office or business software, graphics don’t matter: Hyperpane or any other virtual machine.
  • CAD, video, 3D, or anything that needs the graphics card: you need passthrough, which is what Hyperpane sets up for you.
  • Windows 11 on a machine Microsoft rejected: Hyperpane or any other virtual machine, since they all provide a virtual TPM. Pick from the options above based on whether you need graphics performance.
  • You’d rather not run a second operating system at all: stay with Wine or Proton. Nothing to install, nothing to license, nothing to keep updated.
  • Occasional use and plenty of disk: dual boot works, if you don’t mind rebooting every time you need it.

What Genuinely Doesn’t Work
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Worth saying plainly. Competitive games with kernel-level anti-cheat usually fail everywhere, under Wine and in a virtual machine alike, because the anti-cheat is specifically looking for exactly that. It isn’t a compatibility gap anyone is working to close; it’s deliberate.

If that’s the game you play most, keeping a Windows machine for it is a reasonable answer. ProtonDB will tell you where a specific title stands.

Not Switched Yet?
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If you’re reading this while deciding whether to leave Windows at all, the app question is usually the last one standing. Once you know how your one difficult program will run, the rest is straightforward.

Start with Windows 10 end of support for the wider picture, or Getting Linux to pick a system and try it from a USB stick without installing anything.

Not sure which applies to your app?
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Learn About Hyperpane Ask Us About Your App

Sources
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