You can forward USB devices into a VM. About 15 years ago I was using a Windows VM on Linux to program PIC18F??? devices with the custom (JTAG based?) programmer provided by Microchip. The upside is that you can preserve and share this windows environment for other coworkers, and have separate VMs for different projects (perhaps one you can update, and one you can't ...)
This is exactly what I do currently but it's flaky. Bekhoff installs a runtime on the development PC that works its way deep into the system that can and does crash the VM. Some USB devices work, some don't, some are buggy and may hang or fail in the middle of programming. I have to keep a dedicated Win PC just to make sure I have a working Winstall for my work. I keep VM's of 2k, XP, and 7 as I have to maintain a wide variety of hardware and software. I just want off the Windows upgrade treadmill.
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You can forward USB devices into a VM. About 15 years ago I was using a Windows VM on Linux to program PIC18F??? devices with the custom (JTAG based?) programmer provided by Microchip. The upside is that you can preserve and share this windows environment for other coworkers, and have separate VMs for different projects (perhaps one you can update, and one you can't ...)
This is exactly what I do currently but it's flaky. Bekhoff installs a runtime on the development PC that works its way deep into the system that can and does crash the VM. Some USB devices work, some don't, some are buggy and may hang or fail in the middle of programming. I have to keep a dedicated Win PC just to make sure I have a working Winstall for my work. I keep VM's of 2k, XP, and 7 as I have to maintain a wide variety of hardware and software. I just want off the Windows upgrade treadmill.