Subject: Re: WIN32on UNIX?
From: [email-masked] (Christopher G. Faylor)

29 May 1998 12:31:14 GMT
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
References: <[email-masked]>
X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test63 (15 March 1998)

In article <[email-masked]>,
Stephen Greenberg <[email-masked]> wrote:
>As an integrator of Thin Client and UNIX-NT solutions we are looking for
>
>an alternative solution to presenting WIN32 applications to the UNIX
>desktop. Currently, we are using variations of Citrix Winframe and
>Microsoft Terminal Server (beta) technologies for this purpose, however,
>
>there are a growing number of issues with these solutions for UNIX
>environments. If you are not familiar with this products, they are
>multi-user versions of WIN NT that allow NT user sessions to display on
>UNIX desktops.
>
>We are currently evaluating a product called "LiftOff" from New Moon
>which distributes WIN32 execution by intercepting API calls on the host
>server and re-directing them over the network to be executed on client
>systems. This is an intriguing approach to distributed processing,
>however, it requires that the client system be able to execute the full
>functionality of WIN32. Currently, only WIN9x and WINNT can successfully
>
>act as clients to this WIN NT application server approach.
>
>(This is a link to info on the product)
>
>http://www.newmoon.com/company/press_room/press_releases/pr_05-05-98.html
>
>My question is if there is a way to allow a UNIX desktop to act as a
>full WIN32 client, i.e. receive the API calls from the Windows
>application server and execute them locally. Any information, thoughts
>or speculations are appreciated!

I have used Nterprise (see http://www.exodustech.com ).  It sort of does
what you want, but I don't know if it works with NT 4.  It does allow
you to pop up individual windows on a remote X display

I had problems with the product when I evaluated it a year ago which were
never resolved.  The program would hang randomly.  The tech support response
was basically, "Hmm.  It doesn't hang here."  Perhaps the product has
improved since I evaluated it...

Another, free, alternative is VNC which is available from
http://www.orl.co.uk/vnc .  This nifty program allows the display of the
entire windows desktop on various platforms like linux and windows.
The people who are providing it are extremely courteous and professional.
I've been very impressed by the quality of support that they have been
providing for this free software.

Hope this helps.
-- 
[email-masked]             "Everything has a boolean value, if you stand
http://www.cygnus.com/      far enough away from it."  -- Galena Alyson Canada