How to run Windows XP inside Ubuntu

I use Virtual Box and it works great.

It's pretty simple to use. After installation, just click the "New" button in the toolbar, and a wizard will walk you through creating the VM.

Afterwards, click "settings", go to "storage" and mount the installation media (either as an .iso or the physical drive itself). Click "ok".

Now you can start the VM and it should allow you to install the OS.

Here is an introduction article on virtualization on workswithu.com. Click on the tags at the bottom of the article for even more info.

I highly recommend at least testing the applications in Wine before virtualizing them. When Wine does work there are some important benefits over virtualization: performance is noticeably better, they're easier to run (links right off the Application menu), and they become integrated with the system (easy access to the files in your home folder, no windows in windows, and if they have a system tray icon it sits in the panel).

If every app you need works in Wine, then you also get the added benefit of not needing a copy of Windows for your virtual machine.

An alternative to testing them in Wine is to look them up in Wine's application database: http://appdb.winehq.org/

Currently, I also recommend using my packages from the Wine PPA rather than the packages that come with Ubuntu (which are also mine). You can get instructions here: https://wiki.winehq.org/Ubuntu -- on 14.04, 16.04, and 17.10 you can install either the wine2.21 or wine3.3 (beta) packages. The 2.21 one will remain stable, while the 3.3 will receive updates as new Wine releases come out -- which means 3.3 will generally work with more apps, but might break on an update as well.

The main advantage of using the PPA packages is that you can find an exe file and just right click->open with Wine without having to manually set it as executable.

Virtualbox is a great choice if Wine doesn't work with a particular application. However, if a program does work well in Wine, Virtualbox may not be preferable, due to the inherent performance loss and the need to boot a full Windows OS. It can also be tricky if you do not have an extra copy of Windows available for installation, because it does involve a fresh install.

I was going to say that DirectX 3D games and apps were out of the question, but research seems to indicate that it now has Direct3D support.