this post was submitted on 25 Oct 2025
196 points (99.5% liked)
PC Gaming
12618 readers
1186 users here now
For PC gaming news and discussion. PCGamingWiki
Rules:
- Be Respectful.
- No Spam or Porn.
- No Advertising.
- No Memes.
- No Tech Support.
- No questions about buying/building computers.
- No game suggestions, friend requests, surveys, or begging.
- No Let's Plays, streams, highlight reels/montages, random videos or shorts.
- No off-topic posts/comments, within reason.
- Use the original source, no clickbait titles, no duplicates. (Submissions should be from the original source if possible, unless from paywalled or non-english sources. If the title is clickbait or lacks context you may lightly edit the title.)
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You could use a virtual machine or a compartmentalized solution like Wimboat.
if you use a vm, you still need a legit copy of windows (lol)
What would that solve?
Complete compatibility (because you are running office on Windows natively through a virtual machine rather than a translation/compatibility layer like Wine or Proton) with any of those tricky windows-locked programs that have intentional roadblocks to disrupt normal compatibility methods.
If it wasn't Office, Adobe, or Autodesk, I wouldn't bother, but those 3 are enough of a pain to run via compatibility layer that a virtual machine would be preferrable.
Yeah but, at that point, why not just install Windows?
You get the best of both worlds - you can keep all of your other programs, data, and activity off of Microsoft's ecosystem and Windows, while still having access to crucial programs required for certain jobs or activities. The only downside is performance, because running a GPU passthrough for a virtual machine is a bit of a pain in the nuts, but that's why I mentioned only using that solution for specialist programs that intentionally try to trip you over - use Wine or Proton for everything else.
Plus, it's a bit defeatist to go "Fine Microsoft/Autodesk/Adobe, here's my data" because they're being a dick to you. Just flip them the bird and run a virtual machine or even a cracked version on the virtual machine.
How do you figure that? You're just running Windows inside of Linux, along with all it's cancer.
That goes for normal Windows.
Normal Windows
How does running it in a VM improve network security?
Normal Windows 1 more time.
All the things you can do in a VM you can do running Windows normally.
Man, you must be fun at parties.
Also two things, since I'm confused on if you're playing coy or are just in a contrarian mood:
Yes, all of the functions inside the VM can be achieved with a standard Windows install. However, we are looking at this situation through the lens of a user who wants to use Linux with access to their Windows programs that throw roadblocks (AKA the original commenter of this comment train)
Regarding network security, the advantage of not using Windows as your main operating system is that you have a stable, secure baseline, without any fears of unwanted telemetry or addons included in the package (such as copilot). You can debloat windows, but you can never be truly sure that those issues won't return in the next update or are fully disabled. With a VM that's not running... well, it's not running. Not connected to the internet.
Man you must recycle jokes at parties.
Yes but if you dual boot there's no VM needed LOL
I just can't possibly comprehend why you would prefer that when dual booting is so much simpler...
So you mean to tell me running Windows inside of Linux uses less RAM than just Windows? How does that work?
I mean you can get around that using Rufus easy enough (I'm told).
But why?
I'm not sure you understand how a VM works. There's nothing about a VM that removes telemetry or add-ons from Windows...
And who said anything about a "main operating system"? Linux can still be your "main".
You want to reboot the entire system when you need to use a Windows only application? Instead of just opening up a VM?
...after spending 2 weeks trying to figure out how to make it work? Yeah I'll restart the computer in 2 minutes instead, thank you.
You think making a VM takes two weeks? I'm pretty sure Microsoft provides images you can just pop into virtualbox, but it's been a while since I used VMs.
Also if you need to use the windows software alongside your regular workflow (eg: reading info out of the windows software with your eyes and then typing into your IDE or terminal), rebooting the whole thing is going to suck.
I dunno, I spent several hours trying before I gave up.
I can't fathom a scenario where I would need to do that.
Setting up a windows VM at my old job took like a few minutes, but I already had virtual box (I think that's what I used)
And I needed to see some software running in a Windows box while editing the code that talked to it.
You can restrict network access to the VM and still do normal network stuff on the host machine, for one thing.
You can restrict access to your entire network.
...what? How are you going to do any modern day work on the host machine with no Internet access? Are you going to air gap your windows machine?
...what? How are you going to do work in the VM with no internet access?
Depends on what you need to do. You could mount a folder to get files in or out, for some cases.
Have you used virtual machines before? Done software development?
There ya go, answered your own question.
Yes.
No.
It solves almost everything?
I guess you don't understand the benefit of putting all the shady Microsoft shit in its own dirty polluted sandbox (or individual sandboxes) where it can't spy on anything besides the other stuff in its sandbox that is already tainted and at most it may find a way to spy on the stuff you give it implicit permission to while you do whatever work you need to do with it. Meanwhile your main OS which hopefully does at least 90% of what you actually need to do on a daily basis, and does all the stuff that is actually important to you and happens to be none of Microsoft's business, is safely running the actual show and remains completely under your control and authority, private and spyware-free. If you can't completely get rid of Windows from your life (and some people still feel like they can't for whatever reason), you can at least limit your exposure massively and turn it into practically a non-issue. Compartmentalization is a very effective way of dealing with nasty untrusted software.
When you get that shit locked down tight enough you can run straight-up viruses and rootkits with no concerns at all. You can see what they do, or try to do, and when they're finished doing it, just casually delete them. Some people do. For research. In fact it's so common that a lot of viruses or rootkits go out of their way to try to detect that they're on a VM and refuse to activate if they think they are, there's a whole arms race of researchers trying to make the VM look more realistic so the virus will still trigger. Even the viruses know your VM is probably just fucking with them. Windows, thankfully, isn't quite that bad, and programs written for it will run quite happily in a VM or other virtual environment and let you do whatever you want to do with them, quite safely and subject to your complete authority over them that a VM or other simulated environment can provide.