[Wine] Just saw a great question/idea - Wine & Windows support

[bmullan]

Someone on the Ubuntu LinkedIn group just asked this question and I thought it was really interesting but didn't know if it had been thought of before so not wanting to assume something I thought I'd repost his question here:

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A new way to run windows applications and programs in linux?

With all the virtual machines out there and with Wine I started thinking about how these methods are allowing linux users to run the Windows programs that often are a necessity. Then another question popped into my head and I wondered:

Is it possible for people with dual boot computers, since they already have the windows system files on their hard drive and they are accessible through linux, to somehow make a program that finds these files and uses them in linux when ever you want to use a windows program?

For example, say you want to use an engineering program that is only available for windows. Could it be possible to make a program like Wine that lets you install the engineering program in your linux OS by searching your hard drive for the necessary Windows system files and opening them so that the program can install itself?

Basically acting like the Windows partition is part of the Linux OS and the engineering program doesn't know it is being installed in linux because this program will only show the engineering program the windows files it needs.