CodeWeavers CrossOver and WINEXandros comes bundled with CodeWeavers CrossOver Office and Plugins, which allow you to install and run selected Windows applications including Microsoft Office 2000 Standard (no MS Access), Windows Media Player, Trillian, Windows versions of Shockwave and Flash, as well as install some common True Type fonts. All of the programs I installed worked well, although I'll admit it was very weird using Internet Explorer and Word within Linux. This version of Crossover is fully-functional, but provided with no support or updates. A discounted 'full' version of Crossover can be purchased by Xandros customers.CodeWeavers CrossOver works with WINE to accomplish this magic. WINE doesn't support every Windows program, nor does it give you 100% support for programs it works with, but it gives you enough in many cases to allow you to use programs you may be comfortable/familiar with. As a test, I copied over an entire mIRC directory from a Windows machine via Xandros File Manager to my home directory. No installation, just a straight copy. I double-clicked the mirc32.exe file and voila - mIRC was up and running. Now, while some menu options were not available to me (managing popup scripts, etc.), I was successfully able to go online with mIRC and chat.
To test how WINE worked with an installation, I installed my old faithful HyperSnapDX program (www.hyperionics.com), a great little image manipulation tool that I've become very comfortable with. Installation was simple, but it's important to remember to not accept the default drive, which is a 'dummy drive' in WINE. After installing the program to a subfolder under my home directory, I excecuted the program from the new menu entry installed to the launch menu under 'Windows Applications'. To my surprise, it worked about 80%, with a few graphical glitches and oddities. Still, where the rubber hits the road, it worked - screen captures, resizing, cropping, adding text, etc., most things worked well enough to be useful.Windows users will find this slick implementation of CrossOver and WINE (no user input required) a lifesaver, as they enter the relatively imposing world of Linux applications. In a 'stock' Linux distro, you find yourself having to learn things like extracting .tar files, running new commands like make, etc. It's a lot to deal with for the average computer user. With Xandros's implementation of Crossover and WINE, just install your Windows program and give it a try. You might be pleasantly surprised!