Is it possible to use Adobe software like Adobe Creative Cloud in a Windows 10 VM?

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Is there a way to run Adobe programs easily, using a Windows 10 VM? Or do you know if there is going to be a way in the short term, it would also be interesting if MacOS compatible applications could be run on BSD (I think hellosystem and ravynOS are working to achieve this)

I know that there are alternatives to Adobe software but I have tried them and they are not developed enough for professional use, do not insist on using Inkscape or Gimp (they do not have enough functions for professional use)

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I never tried it myself, but I expect that you should be able to run Windows software in a VM, unless this software is trying to actively prevent it. Also, it could be slow, because there is no GPU acceleration in Qubes.

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With Adobe, you will probably have to enable networking for the Windows VM in order to connect to the Adobe server(s) for license verification, i.e. set the network VM for that to sys-firewall and not to none. But you may restrict network access to just the Adobe server using an appropriate firewall rule for the Windows VM.

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Actually, there are solutions to keep Adobe products from using the network for license checking. We all know them.

However, it’s interesting - does anybody have a success story of correctly running, let’s say, Lightroom Classic inside a Qubes OS cube?

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It should work if you passthrough GPU to your Windows qube.
The 3d acceleration in a qube with GPU passthrough to it and without dedicated external display didn’t work properly for me with HVM emulated video driver, but it worked properly when I connect to the qube using FreeRDP from another Linux qube.
Vulkan/OpenGL/DirectX GPU benchmarks worked properly over RDP.
But there is a problem with video stuttering and I don’t know what’s causing this.
The same benchmarks running in Linux qube with GPU passthrough to it work fine without any stuttering.

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I’m sorry if I’m asking something obvious, but I had a good experience running Lightroom Classic in VirtualBox (for photos, I understand that it’s not the same as video editing, but anyway).

So, I wonder, are there any technical reasons why it could be run with moderate performance in VirtualBox but not under Qubes OS?
Or are you highlighting a just noticeable reduction in performance in comparison with native Windows, but not a performance drop that would be kind a blocker?

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VirtualBox with Guest Additions installed in the guest VM allows the guest to use 3d acceleration using host’s 3D hardware (basically, it’s creating a virtual GPU in a guest). There is no such feature in Xen, so you’ll need to passthrough a dedicated GPU to the qube if you want to use 3d acceleration there.
Lightroom Classic most likely won’t even start without accelerated 3d hardware available.

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Actually, I was able to successfully start the latest Lightroom (portable version, but anyway) in an air-gapped VM under Qubes OS and work in it!

I’ve created a volume using blivet-gui, attached it to the VM, and created an NTFS partition there.

Then I copied the whole Lightroom catalog to this NTFS partition using the vault cube. My catalog already has 1:1 previews and Smart previews generated for each photo in my library, so I was able to operate with all my images (view and edit).

However, I still can’t attach an ext4 partition with RAW originals to the Windows 11 VM; it doesn’t see it even on the device level in Disk Management. Probably I need some drivers installed.

This would be the last brick in the Adobe Lightroom usage there (maybe I’ll even provide some home-made photo export performance test Qubes vs VirtualBox later on).

Could someone recommend particular ext4 drivers for that?