Running Windows apps on Mac is quite tricky but it is possible. Windows itself is a great operating system and we see a lot of useful programs and apps being made only for Windows. You would want to run a Windows app on a Mac if you don’t have a Windows system handy.
Well, running Windows apps on Mac is quite easy and in this post, we have some really interesting and easy to implement ways of getting this done. We will mainly be using Wine and Boot Camp for this but we can also take help of a virtual machine to do so. Let’s get started and see how to run Windows apps on Mac.
Wine is an open source program for running Windows software on non-Windows operating systems. While it’s most often used on Linux, Wine can run Windows software directly on a Mac, too–without requiring a Windows license or needing Windows running in the background. A lot of software comes out for Mac and Windows these days, but there are always a few games or apps that don't make it OS X. Thankfully, you can easily port many Windows programs to OS X with. I am a newbie with a mac and there are just some windows based applications that I need, but don't have alot of hd space or ram, so I was trying to avoid using bootcamp or a vm. From what I read on how to install Wine, it seems so complicated, but I didn't want to have to pay alot for crossover. Don’t buy a Windows license, don’t reboot or use a virtual machine until you try CrossOver for Mac and Linux. Download a free 2-week trial now and get your Windows apps running on Mac and Linux.
Using Wine![]()
Wine used to be a very famous utility that allowed people to run Windows apps on a Linux distro. But now that we have the ability to use Wine on Mac, we can use this to our advantage.
Wine is basically a compatibility layer for Windows apps to run on Mac and it provides these apps a platform to execute. All things said it is important to mention that using Windows apps using Wine is not a very stable experience. It can get quite buggy and some apps will just refuse to work at all.
How To Run Windows Apps On Mac With Wine Vinegar
There’s also a long procedure that you need to follow in order to setup Wine on your Mac device. We will not write the whole procedure because you can read it already at David Baumgold’s website. He has written a very neat and detailed tutorial to get Wine working on Mac.
Using Boot Camp
What is the best way to run Windows apps on Mac other than by installing Windows alongside macOS? This is exactly what Boot Camp allows us to do. This will be a dual boot system which means you can use either macOS or Windows at a time. To switch to another operating system, you will need to restart your Mac. You will have native Windows support on the windows installation which means your apps and programs will be running at full compatibility and they will not produce any sort of bugs.
Installing Windows using Boot Camp is a piece of cake and all you need is to download the Windows image if you don’t have it. Boot Camp assistant is built right into your Mac so just open the Launchpad and look for Boot Camp Assistant and after that, you’ll need to do what the wizard asks you to do one by one.
Using Virtual Machine
You can download and install something like the VMWare of Parallels in order to install Windows over macOS. This will allow you to install any Windows apps inside the virtual machine and then you can use the app through the virtual machine. This is a very clean way to run Windows apps on Mac as compared to something like Wine and Boot Camp since you’re not messing with Mac’s system in any way.
These are some of the best ways of running Windows apps on Mac that are viable today. Out of all these, I prefer going towards the virtual machine route since it helps me keep my system intact.
In my previous post, I talked about installing Wine on your Mac using HomeBrew.
This post will focus on actually running Windows applications.
1. Run winecfg to verify correct operation
This is an optional step, but for good measure I like to verify everything’s up and running and configured correctly. So open up a Terminal and type:
This should open up the wine configuration window:
I leave all options default, although it may be worthwhile to click on all tabs and have a look-see.
2. Install your Windows application
One of the applications I sorely missed on Mac, is Total Commander. Although its operation in Wine is not guaranteed, especially not when it comes to plug-ins, etcetera. How to hide an app mac. But since I mainly use it as a Finder alternative, I expect not too many issues. I will post here if I find some.
Anyway, in order for Wine to correctly understand your program’s requirements, it needs to install the program through its official installer. Just copying over the executable might work, but it is way better to use this process.
How to free up space on mac. So, I downloaded TC’s installer into ~/Downloads. https://hsever.weebly.com/blog/mirroring-apps-for-mac. Its name is tcmd912x32_64.exe
Launch Terminal and run the installer:
Which should then present you with the installer’s window. If you keep everything standard, this means that you will have a Total Commander installed in:
In fact, you will see the structure under drive_c mimicks a regular Windows p.c., in that there are “Program Files” and also “windows” folders.
How To Run Windows Apps On Mac With Wine Pairing3. Run the Windows application
Running the application should now be relatively straightforward:
And voilà, there is your windows application!
The steps are identical for other Windows applications:
How To Run Windows Apps On Mac Winebottler
How To Run Windows Apps On Mac With Wine Opener
Happy using Windows on your Mac!
Comments are closed.
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |