Will Samba run my Windows programs?

I think it depends on how the program installs itself. I've installed programs before on pc's that ask the user where to put it's files and the main program in general. In cases like that you could map a drive to the Samba share and store the program and all of it's data on that share itself. You will still need to run the install from the windows pc in order to get the registry settings setup correctly. If it's an older program, i.e. DOS based, etc, and doesn't need any registry settings, you could probably run it straight from the Samba share. I hope this helps. FYI, my company has taken complete NT Servers and converted them to Samba seemlessly without clients even realizing, so this should be very possible.

If you are talking about switching her machine to linux, you would be looking at Wine.

http://www.winehq.com

This is windows emulation for Linux. A commercial version of this is Crossover office.

Samba allows a Linux computer to "fit into" a Windows network, and basically imitate a Windows machine. Computers running Samba primarily act as file servers or domain controllers; Samba does not allow such machines to run Windows programs. You would use Samba to allow Windows users to store their files on a Linux box or to retrieve e-mail, etc.
Wine allows computers running Linux to run Windows programs, but not all Windows programs. I know Wine can run Office and Photoshop, for example. You would have to check to see if your wife's tax program is supported by Wine.
The tax program would still be expensive, no matter whether you run it on Windows or Linux. Do you want to replace it with another? Or do you want to avoid using Windows? I do not know of any tax programs specifically written for Linux, so your wife may not have too many alternatives.
If you need any points clarified, please e-mail me at johnj@iglou.com.
John Wheaton

this softare will not work on samba bcuz it is the software fr connectivity between Linux and Windows systems. but u can try " wine " software to install windows packages on linux bcuz most of packages works through " wine " on Linux platefarm.