Comments on Install and run Windows applications
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Install and run Windows applications
How do I install and run Windows applications downloaded from a website? Windows applications do not run natively on Linux, but can be run using Wine. When downloading these applications from a webpage, I will have a .exe or .msi installer in my Downloads directory. What are the next steps to install these on Linux? How do I then run the installed application? How do I add it to my applications list readily available with a mouse click in my desktop environment?[1] I should be able to use the application as if it is any other native application on my system.
Applications downloaded from a webpage may include their own built-in updater. Will that work as intended (automatic)?
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Having to resort to the Terminal to open the application, is not sufficient. It needs to be available when I search in my app launcher list, or open the GUI app list. ↩︎
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Installation
At least in KDE Plasma all you really need is to have the .exe files associated with wine. Right click > Open with in Dolphin will do the trick.
Once you got that covered, the installer can be run by just doubleclicking the exe, just like in windows. It will be installed to your default wine prefix (which might not be what you want. One prefix per program would be a more principled approach.)
Wine will also map windows desktop entries to freedesktop .desktop files. Your desktop environment should pick these up.
Tldr: Given a working wine and desktop environment, it should just work.
Updaters
I don't think that wine will install any daemons to your linux. I guess you could manually create e.g. a systemd service to run an updater with wine, but I would recommend against it. Many windows programs will anyway check for updates on launch and nag you about an outdated version.
Or just sign up to a release mailing list.
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