Anyone doing this successfully with free software? Virtual Box won't install properly for me so I'm looking to wine. Anyone have a success story?

Wine has come a long way and can run a multitude of programs, but I've not tried it for this. I'd be interested in your results!

I'm surprised vbox won't install for you, but it's not unheard of. Did it throw any telling errors?

Now, for a next-to-free solution, you could use an AWS Workspace (they come in Window 7 and 10) which could run you a couple bucks a month if you forget to turn it off. I know there are VPS options but they do tend to run a little more and then you have to worry about the OS and all that.

try doing an amazon web service virtual machine. You can set up a virtual box that way.

I've recently had trouble running a linux vm after the windows 10 host updated. The issue was that 3d graphics acceleration didn't work and I once I turned that off and turned on 2d acceleration and it worked fine. That's where I would start to try to fidget with it.