The current and most recent generations of Intel chip sets do not allow installation of Windows below version 10.
The articles I've read say installation of older versions of Windows will be unsupported by Microsoft and Intel. That's not the same as saying the hardware won't allow it. Linux is unsupported by most hardware manufacturers, too.
If we have hardware with one of those chip sets, running Linux with Wine, can we use Windows 7 or 8.1?
If you're running Wine in Linux you're not using Windows at all. But if you're asking whether you can choose Windows 8 or 8.1 in winecfg, I don't see why not. The version chosen in winecfg is just what's reported to the app/game running in Wine. While that may cause some apps/games to choose a different code path (i.e., calling functions it expects to exist in the reported version, not calling ones that don't) in itself the Windows version means nothing to the host system, and it's the host system that interacts with the hardware. However, keep in mind that newer apps/games may actually require Windows 10 and refuse to install or run if you choose some other version.
However, keep in mind that newer apps/games may actually require Windows 10 and refuse to install or run if you choose some other version.
Thank you. We are interested only in being able to run a few programs such as Excel, FrameMaker (an older Windows version), and the like. So it seems we will be able to run as if in Windows 7, which is great news for us.
However, keep in mind that newer apps/games may actually require Windows 10 and refuse to install or run if you choose some other version.
Thank you. We are interested only in being able to run a few programs such as Excel, FrameMaker (an older Windows version), and the like. So it seems we will be able to run as if in Windows 7, which is great news for us.
If an application has a Windows XP profile / support - then this still tend to provide the best compatibility with Wine (ie setting a Wineprefix to Windows XP compatibility).
The current default for a Wineprefix, in the Development branch of Wine, is Windows 7. This is mainly to start a process of gradually improving the Wine support for newer Windows API calls - first introduced in Windows Vista.
Also it's Microsoft that put soft blocks on running older versions of Windows (ie pre Windows 10) on newer hardware platforms. But I gather these restrictions have already been worked around...
