How best to run a Windows app on Cloudready
October 11, 2018 5:40 PM Subscribe
A small non-profit, with limited IT resources, has converted most of its Windows PCs to run the ChromeOS fork Neverware. This was instead of upgrading to Win10. This is fine in many ways, except we have a mission-critical Windows-only application that we sometimes need for most users.
Our current solution is to have this app installed on a remote Windows 2012 server, which users access via the Chrome RDP extension. Unlike proper Windows RDP, this chrome extension doesn't allow printing the app's output to a local a printer via a printer redirect (we are looking into google cloud print). Also, the workflow we have of saving the app output is clunky. i.e saving to cloud storage on the remote server, then accessing the same cloud storage from a local machine is confusing to users. I also don't like relying on the remote server, for cost, reliable access, and security reasons.
Is there a method we're missing of getting a win32 application to somehow run on a Neverware Cloudready PC? As we're not running full fat chromeOS, we don't have access to the Playstore, so Crossover is out. Neverware comes with Virtualbox, but that seems too complex, with no solution offering drag-and-drop from a guest OS to Cloudready, that I'm aware of. Is there anything else on the horizon?
Our current solution is to have this app installed on a remote Windows 2012 server, which users access via the Chrome RDP extension. Unlike proper Windows RDP, this chrome extension doesn't allow printing the app's output to a local a printer via a printer redirect (we are looking into google cloud print). Also, the workflow we have of saving the app output is clunky. i.e saving to cloud storage on the remote server, then accessing the same cloud storage from a local machine is confusing to users. I also don't like relying on the remote server, for cost, reliable access, and security reasons.
Is there a method we're missing of getting a win32 application to somehow run on a Neverware Cloudready PC? As we're not running full fat chromeOS, we don't have access to the Playstore, so Crossover is out. Neverware comes with Virtualbox, but that seems too complex, with no solution offering drag-and-drop from a guest OS to Cloudready, that I'm aware of. Is there anything else on the horizon?
(addendum: I'd be super cautious about crossover/wine solutions for super mission critical apps - the corner cases tend to be.... subtle
Related: Could this just be as simple as enabling drag and drop on virtualbox - https://ccm.net/faq/41654-virtualbox-how-to-enable-drag-and-drop-support - and have the app auto-launch of startup?).
posted by jaymzjulian at 6:29 PM on October 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
Related: Could this just be as simple as enabling drag and drop on virtualbox - https://ccm.net/faq/41654-virtualbox-how-to-enable-drag-and-drop-support - and have the app auto-launch of startup?).
posted by jaymzjulian at 6:29 PM on October 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
Could you just move the Windows application to a local Windows server, attached to a local printer, and RDP into that? Or have a printer and/or print server connected to the remote Windows server via VPN or something so that it can print as though it's printing to a local network printer?
posted by XMLicious at 5:24 AM on October 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by XMLicious at 5:24 AM on October 12, 2018 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thank you both, this is helpful, though I suspect our current solution is a least-worse option.
The app will run in Wine, but I don't think flatpak is the way to go for us, in part because the app has new versions every few months. I might try it as a one-off, but couldn't support rebuilding the flatpak app every time. It looks quite involved, for my skills at least (though for anyone running Neverware, I'd recommend looking at the flatpak Libre Office)
Maintaining a local windows server is just what we're in the process of getting rid of. It's just this one remaining app that requires Windows of some form. I've today got google cloud print from the remote server, which works nicely.
Drag-and-drop for vbox might change how viable that is, but the remote server, likely using google drive, is probably going to have to do for now. (I briefly considered ReactOS in a VM but ... no, .. avoiding licence costs is all well and good, but this is meant to be something easy and stable)
posted by wilko at 11:06 AM on October 12, 2018
The app will run in Wine, but I don't think flatpak is the way to go for us, in part because the app has new versions every few months. I might try it as a one-off, but couldn't support rebuilding the flatpak app every time. It looks quite involved, for my skills at least (though for anyone running Neverware, I'd recommend looking at the flatpak Libre Office)
Maintaining a local windows server is just what we're in the process of getting rid of. It's just this one remaining app that requires Windows of some form. I've today got google cloud print from the remote server, which works nicely.
Drag-and-drop for vbox might change how viable that is, but the remote server, likely using google drive, is probably going to have to do for now. (I briefly considered ReactOS in a VM but ... no, .. avoiding licence costs is all well and good, but this is meant to be something easy and stable)
posted by wilko at 11:06 AM on October 12, 2018
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This is partially a function of "How technical are you?". A quick bit of googling finds that you can run flatpak linux packages on cloudready these days (via), supposedly, and then you could use winepak to deploy your windows app in that, but this relies on a couple of things:
1) Does the app even run in wine - this question applies to crossover as well, of course, and the answer is as often no as it is yes, particularly for businessy apps (weirdly, wine does a lot better on games....)
2) Do you have someone who can support this esoteric setup if you do make it go - this is all reasonably experimental!
posted by jaymzjulian at 6:24 PM on October 11, 2018 [1 favorite]