Please help if you can

[Chuck Swiger]

Chris wrote:
> I would like to know if this OS platform supports your everday and ever so
> standard .EXE applications.

Yes, FreeBSD will run standalone executable code in the various .exe and .dll 
formats, although people often use Wine or a similiar emulator if they want to 
have a more complete Windows environment available while using FreeBSD.

> Basically, I am wondering if FreeBSD is compatible to all of the endless
> softwares out there that "require" you to be using a certain version of
> Microsoft Windows?

All of the software?  No.

Not that most Windows software is portable enough the run on all flavors of 
Windows itself: there's plenty of old 16-bit stuff which won't work on a 
modern Win32 platform (WinXP, 2003, etc), just as there is a huge amount of 
stuff written today which won't run on Windows 3.1.

That being said, FreeBSD doesn't come with the Windows DLL's that many 
programs use.  But they and other resources like TrueType fonts can be used if 
you migrate them, and if you check the ports collection you you find ways of 
using Flash and RealPlayer and video codec stuff like that if you really want 
to.  Stability may suffer somewhat compared with purely native FreeBSD apps, 
but if people want to view websites in Flash (or be advertised to, more 
accurately), they can.

See http://www.freebsd.org/ports/

> I'm not a computer genius (though for some reason many label me as that)
> but I know my way around the Windows platform quite well. I am not an
> advanced programmer in any sort, but I do try and have several different
> types of programming software.

Don't worry about it-- I promise that we won't call you a computer genius if 
you don't want us to.  I make no comment on what might happen in the converse 
situation, but I suggest verifying your sense of humor beforehand.

-- 
-Chuck