Is it possible to create Windows Form apps on Mac OS?

Question

I'm studying Informatics Engineering, and my teacher uses a Windows PC to teach us Windows Forms. My question is: Can I do my Windows Forms homework on my mac? I'll install Visual Studio of course.

Answer 1

Can you do the Windows Forms homework on your Mac? Maybe.

• As mentioned, Mono has an implementation of Windows Forms. There has been recent activity in this area (early 2018).
• Visual Studio for Mac is not actually regular Visual Studio. It's a re-branding of MonoDevelop.

Should you try to do the Windows Forms homework on your Mac? Probably not.

• The Mono version is a different implementation of Forms and you're going to run into bugs, missing features, etc.
• You're going to end up debugging environment differences. Mono/OSX vs Windows, VS for Mac vs VS proper, etc.
• You'll end up in more trouble if they provide bat/powershell scripts, require another Windows-only library, etc.

The end result being either you'll spend a lot of time trying to use things you receive from someone else, or (even worse) they won't be able to run what you turn in.

Alternatives:

• As has also been mentioned, you can run Windows in a VM like virtualbox, Parallels, or VMWare Fusion. Visual Studio Community is free.
• Use a computer lab at your school with Windows machines
• Work remotely via: Microsoft Remote Desktop, Apple Remote Desktop, VNC, etc.