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Wine works for quite a few Windows applications [url]http://winehq.org/[/url]. However, I strongly suggest looking for a Linux alternative. They aren't buggy, they are free, and sometimes you will like them better! If you name the specific applications, we might be able to suggest something.

Reed, please don't mislead matthias... Windows .exe files often can run in Linux if you have Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) installed. It provides Windows API support for Windows applications, and they are truly running directly on Linux. Yes, a virtual machine is often a better solution - some Windows applications don't play well with Wine - but many do. I have a lot of Windows tools for which I don't have reasonable Linux alternatives that I run under Wine quite successfully including some pretty sophisticated software such as Framemaker (high-end text processing), Photoshop, TMPGEnc DVD Author, etc. I have other applications that will only run in Windows for which I use a VM with a full XP installation running. That way I can continue to work in my Linux environment (web browsing, word processing, software development, business management) at the same time I am doing work in Windows (stock/option trading, UML software modeling, Windows software building). That way I get the most productivity possible out of my system. Personally, unless I have to have an OS running on the hardware itself (occasionally necessary), I don't bother with dual-booting at all, but use Wine for those applications that play well with it, and VirtualBox as a virtual machine manager for those that don't. In those cases where I need another OS running on the bare metal, so to speak, I have a removable boot drive and additional carriers with sata discs that I use for that purpose. Each carrier/disc pair contains a full operating system and its normal boot process. I shut down the system, swap out the drive (unplug one, plug in the other), and restart the system. The swapping process takes about 10 seconds. I only do that to validate system software as most of the time I can install these other operating systems in a virtual machine quite happily.

Sometimes real fast is almost as good as real time. Remember, Google is your friend!