Why don't Microsoft softwares normally run on Linux or Mac OS X?

Business sense! Microsoftware won't like to help competitors to take away their own customers!

There are several different Operating Systems out there. Each has their own advantages and disadvantages. But each Operating System have a different API (Application Program Interface) or program layer in which programs talk to the Operating System which in turn talk to the hardware. Because there are different APIs, it takes time to port (translate a program from one API to another) a program to another Operating System. Microsoft creates Windows, and as such they know the Windows API like the back of their hand, and they have a vested interest on making sure their software works on the Windows API. As a result they put most of their effort on making software for the Windows API and other APIs are an after thought (if they are even created in the first place). This makes sense from a business point of view as well, because if you have a program that everyone has to use (ie Microsoft Office) and it only works on one Operating System (ie Windows, the Operating System created and maintained by Microsoft) then it doesn't make sense to make the program run on your competitor's Operating System as well (thus taking sales away from your Operating System, Windows).

You could try to complain that all companies should use a standard API but doing so would mean that every Software company in the world (many which hate each other with a bitter passion) would have to agree what the standard should be (most likely Microsoft will try to force their API on everyone else which would ruin some of the main advantages other Operating Systems have (like a lack of viruses)).

now some of this i can't answer. but some i can. you may think that when you first get a mac that it is very dumb to use. If you grew up with a PC then macs are going to take some getting used to but overall they are better in the end in my opinion. Macs do tend to get less viruses but it may not be for the reason that you are thinking. A mac file has 2 parts that it is required to have. When it takes a PC file and coverts it to a mac file, it changes it into these two parts. This can destroy any hope for the virus working the way that it was intentionally made to be used. This is not the case in program files. If they were made prepositionally then they will make this conversion smoothly. I personally am a PC user only because the only time i ever have access to a MAC, i am frustrated because i grew up on a PC. If i sat down and tried to learn a MAC then i would fly through it with ease. But i have done my research on both and MAC in my opinion is better

It is the way the operating system works that prevents OS X software from running in Windows or Windows software from running in OS X. It isn't any conscious effort to punish people for not using a particular operating system. This isn't something new. Since electronic computers were first developed, software applications had to be engineered for one particular type of hardware and operating system. That was the big deal with the IBM Personal Computer (also known as the IBM PC). By making a computer that used a different processor, different ROM chip, and different boot sequence than Apple computers, all the applications made to run on the IBM were only for it, never for the Apple. If a lot of great business applications were available to run on the IBM and none of those apps would run on the Apple, people would buy the IBM, even if it was a silly system at the root level. It was made by the Goliath of computer companies in an effort to get a share of what Apple had back in 1981, namely 50% of the market in personal computers. When IBM PC became popular, many software companies got busy making software for the IBM. Compaq reverse-engineered the IBM ROM chip to allow their computer to use the same software as the IBM PC, and over the decades, dozens of other companies became Compaq copy-cats. {Incidentally, Apple was one of the few research-design-manufacturers in the home computer industry. IBM didn't want to spend time -- which for sloth-like IBM would have been several years-- designing a computer, so they simply put together a bunch of parts that were already on the electronic shop shelves. They set the trend for PC makers not to be innovative.}

Before that scenario played out, Microsoft was making software for Apple for some eight years before there ever was any Windows operating system. By the way, people get confused about Microsoft when they say they sell computers. They have never sold a computer in their history. "Windows computer" means any brand of X86 hardware platform that can run the Windows operating system.

Microsoft doesn't try to keep their software from running on non-Windows systems. They make Office for Mac and Windows Media Player for Mac. In the olden days before OS X (pre-2001), Microsoft made Internet Explorer and Outlook Express for Mac.

Apple goes both ways, too... when it makes sense. They make QuickTime, iTunes, and Safari for Windows.

Most of the software that people use on their Windows system isn't Microsoft software. Other than Web browsing and email, most people use their Windows computer as a toy for playing games. The design of a game is time consuming. More often than not, the game designers only apply their time to developing their products for Windows operating systems. It isn't profitable for a very small game making company to spend a lot of time developing OS X versions of their games. If they only sell 100 games for Windows, they will probably only sell 5 or 6 for OS X and 1 or 2 for Linux, so where's the profit?

Microsoft softwares are not designed for Linux plateform.

Many of the softwares are designed for Mac OS by microsoft and they work on it.

Linux is a different concept most of the Linux OS are freewares(GNP/GNU Licenses) and microsoft seldom works for charity purposes.

The linux has different file system like ext2,ext3,ext4 the kernel is different you just go through this site.

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000575.htm

emulators create virtual environment to run dos/windows based programs within Linux

Hello,

This is a really rough answer.

Because most Microsoft products are written in Microsoft languages such as Visual C++ and etc.

And they want people to be dependant on their operating systems to use their software.

If their software was written in "regular" #C then it might be different.

Some software written for the Windows operating system can run on *nix/xBSD/linux... via wine.

There is more information on wine @ http://www.winehq.org/about/

Because that's the way computers work. Applications have to be compiled for a particular operating system and/or chipset. An application that's compiled to run on a PPC chip cannot run on an Intel chip. Software that's designed to run under Windows makes system calls to specific Windows libraries and functions that don't exist outside of Windows. The same goes for software written to run under Linus, Mac OS or any other OS.

The majority of Microsoft Software is written for Windows.

They use files and file structures that doesn't exist on Linux or Mac OS.

Yeah, business is definitely one of the reasons, you wouldn't like people taking your products, and buying another company's hardware to go along with those. Microsoft's products are basically scripted to run on Microsoft computers generally to keep it all in the family.