Run Windows program in VM, without seeing Windows

Ok so I don’t know if this is commonly done or even possible, but I want to have a link to a program (e.g. Word 365) that I can open and it will:

  • Start a Windows VM
  • Create a new virtual monitor
  • Open Word 365 in fullscreen on that monitor

Then I can open Excel and it will do the same with a new virtual monitor.
This will allow me to have Windows programs that do not function in wine effectively “running in linux”, without me having to see windows.

Sounds like you’re looking for some thing like Winapps.

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Thank you, this is definitely a starting point, however if anyone knows of anything designed for Manjaro KDE (not Debian/Ubuntu Gnome) then please let me know : )

The majority of software for Linux is distro-agnostic. Something that was, say, written by system76 for pop!os should work just fine on Manjaro gnome. Winapps should work just fine on Manjaro Gnome/KDE. Not being Ubuntu or Fedora shouldn’t matter much.

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Technically it is possible because you can start a virtualbox instance in the background with rdp enabled.

I have done something similar once - albeit not creating shortcuts to programs in the vm - nonetheless similiar.

You may be able to amend my notes to fit your purpose

Then you can use the mentioned Winapps approach - for what I can see in the repo - this should work with Manjaro as well.

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Thank you, this looks like a good option, and I will only be using a few programs so I do not need the automatic scanning and registration of installed Windows programs, I can just manually create links which pass arguments to the client.

Office365 is an on-line environment. You only need access to the internet to connect to www.office.com via a web browser. Then you can sign in to an Office application.
You do not need Windows for that.

Office 365 does have an online environment, however it also has offline windows apps which I prefer because they are much more responsive (on my internet) and have more features.

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