HP OpenVMS Systems

Intel IA-32 emulator for OpenVMS?

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The Question is:

 
Is there a WindowsNT emulator that can run in OpenVMS?
 

The Answer is :

 
  Short answer: no.
 
  The OpenVMS Wizard is not aware of any available Intel IA-32 emulator
  environment for use on OpenVMS -- while these environments did once
  exist for various platforms (including OpenVMS), empirical evidence
  indicates they are relatively unpopular as products (and are thus
  relatively poor commercial prospects).
 
  SoftWindows and SoftPC were two of the better-known examples of this
  class of software-based platform emulation products.
 
  Some vendors also provided add-in hardware for direct execution of
  IA-32 applications and operating systems on other platforms, but this
  hardware-based approach also proved to be less than commercially
  successful over the long term -- the add-in hardware tended to be
  more expensive than the hardware it attempted to replace.
 
  The COM for OpenVMS product is another approach, permitting applications
  to run directly on the target environment, but to continue to access
  the Microsoft Win32 APIs and other components of the COM (or DCOM)
  environment.  Details of the COM product are available at the OpenVMS
  website.
 
  If coexistence is a concern, you will want to evaluate the portability
  of your applications.  (It is quite easy to provide examples of both
  portable and non-portable applications, regardless of the platform(s).)
 

  

     

     
answer written or last revised on ( 2-OCT-2001 )
     
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