Pages

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

CodeWeavers 30% off Winter Solstice 2012 Sale on CrossOver Mac and Linux

Save 30% off CrossOver Linux and MAC with Solstice2012 as your dealcode.

This promo code has now expired, you can now use TOM23 and receive a 20% discount off any CodeWeavers product.

While the big box stores and shopping malls run black Friday sales, and in recent years many of the online retailers have began to have black Monday sales. Leave it up to the wacky folks at Codeweavers to have a 20% off Winter Solstice Sales on CrossOver Mac and Linux.

Why a Winter Solstice sale you might ask, well you see CodeWeavers has their headquarters in Minneapolis St. Paul Minnesota and in Minnesota in the winter you measure snow by the feet and temperatures to the negative. So when the Solstice comes on December 21st, the beginning's of longer days and warmth are surly on the way. And this is a time of mass celebration on the magnitude of world cup winners, or your favorite team winning the super bowl. And in all this mass hysteria a thirty percent off sale was devised so everyone around the world can join in this festive time of the year.

This sale runs from now until December 23rd 2023 and to take advantage of it just use "TOM23" as your dealcode in CodeWeavers store at checkout.

This is a good time to purchase CrossOver not only because you will save 30 percent off the normal retail selling price. CrossOver 12.0 was recently released on 12/12/12 with many new features and bug fixes. So this is the perfect time to purchase CrossOver for yourself or as a gift to a family member or friend.

This sale is open to anyone who needs to run Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux and FreeBSD. So please help spread the word and post about the "TOM23" sale on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, your web site, and don't forget to send a tweet to all your friends and family.

 This promo code has now expired, you can now use TOM23 and receive a 20% discount off any CodeWeavers product.


Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac



Sunday, December 16, 2012

New CodeWeavers Dealcodes Save from 10 to 15 percent off CrossOver Now

The folks over at CodeWeavers have given us two new dealcodes. :) A promo code is coupon code that can be used in their online store. The two new promo codes are "TOM23" this promo code is good for a 20% discount on CrossOver for Mac and Linux. The second promo code is "TOM23" and it will get you a 20% discount on any product in their store.


Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac



CodeWeavers Launches CrossOver 12 For Linux And MAC

CODEWEAVERS LAUNCHES CROSSOVER 12
Update includes experimental Mac graphics driver
Internal feud leads to what Marketing Department calls the most boring name ever for a software feature. Marketing weeping tears of bitterness.

 
SAINT PAUL, Minn (December 12, 2012) — CodeWeavers, Inc., developer of CrossOver software which enables Mac and Linux users to run Windows software on their computers without the need of a Microsoft license, announced today the release of its new software, CrossOver 12.
CodeWeavers, ever aggressive on the software development front, has also included an experimental Mac graphics driver in CrossOver 12. Prosaically named The Mac Driver by the product’s development team after triumphing over Marketing in closely-watched contest of wills, the new driver will lead to smoother, faster, more native Mac performance as it’s perfected.
“Like our previous versions, CrossOver 12 gives everyone the most-affordable solution for accessing to thousands of Windows applications on Mac and Linux, because with our product, you don’t need a Windows license,” said CEO Jeremy White. “Version 12 continues our steady progress in terms of more Windows applications just working under CrossOver. If you haven’t tried CrossOver recently with your favorite Windows application, it’s worth taking the 5 minutes to give it another look.”
“But what’s even cooler,” White continued “is what our new “The Mac Driver” is going to do for our Mac porting customers. Now that we have The Mac Driver, we’ll be able to move Windows applications over to the Mac platform even more rapidly. It will help us deliver a final ported application that looks, smells, and feels more like a native Mac application than ever before.”
“It is actually a really cool feature,” confirmed Jon Parshall, CodeWeavers’ COO and head of Marketing, “But this just goes to show what happens when you let software developers name something. Next thing you know, they’ll want to rename CrossOver ‘That MacWindows Compatibility Program’ for our next release. If you’ll pardon me, I think I need a drink.”

About “The Mac Driver”
The Mac Driver supplants CrossOver’s current X11 windows driver technology. This new driver format will be an optional feature in CrossOver 12, allowing users to enable/disable it at need for specific applications. It will also allow CodeWeavers to gather useful feedback from its distributed cadre of testers in order to hone its features for future releases.
CrossOver 12 is immediately available at www.CodeWeavers.com

Wondering if your favorite Windows software title will run under CrossOver?

About CodeWeavers
Founded in 1996 as a general software consultancy, CodeWeavers focuses on the development of Wine –the core technology found in all of its CrossOver products. The company’s goal is to bring expanded market opportunities for Windows software developers by making it easier, faster and more painless to port Windows software to Linux. CodeWeavers is recognized as a leader in open-source Windows porting technology, and maintains development offices in Minnesota, the United Kingdom and elsewhere around the world. The company is privately held. For more information about CodeWeavers, log on to www.codeweavers.com.

Change Log For CrossOver 12

12.0.0 CrossOver - December 12, 2012
  • Mac OS X:
    • CrossOver now incorporates our experimental Mac Driver. With the Mac Driver, Windows programs running under CrossOver no longer have to use the X Window System to interact with the screen and keyboard. This feature is currently experimental but will become the way all CrossOver applications work on OS X in the future.
    • CrossOver has improved font handling for fonts used by certain applications, such as National Mah Jongg League Online.
  • Linux:
    • CrossOver Linux now installs a single desktop menu item rather than a multitude of desktop menus. This approach works better with desktop systems such as GNOME 3 and Unity, which usually don't have a hierarchical desktop menu structure.
    • CrossOver now has much better support for window transparency (layered windows) when a compositing window manager is available. (When the Mac Driver is complete, this feature will be available on OS X as well). Many transparent windows will now work that did not before.
      Improvements in this area include:
      • Microsoft Office applications in the Office 2003 and Office 2007 suites will now behave properly when working with embedded pictures or graphics. Previously, rotating or resizing embedded graphics caused the screen to go temporarily black;
      • Game launchers (such as that for Guild Wars 2, for example) which use color-keying to create transparent window areas will display properly rather than being drawn with black borders;
      • ...and many more.
    • We have resolved some issues which caused printers not to appear.
  • Application Support:
    • CrossOver now supports World of Tanks.
    • CrossOver now supports Quicken 2013.
    • CrossOver now supports installation of .Net 4.0.
    • CrossOver Linux now supports Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 will run for many people on CrossOver Mac, but many users will encounter persistent graphics problems. Previously, CodeWeavers had released a specially-built version of CrossOver dedicated to running Guild Wars 2. That is no longer necessary.
    • Improvements to Microsoft Office:
      • Fixed a crash displaying certain email messages in Outlook 2010.
      • Outlook 2010 will now save passwords.
      • Improved Gmail and other IMAP connections with Outlook 2007.
      • Fixed auto-discovery during account configuration for Outlook 2007.
      • PowerPoint 2010 now displays equations in slide shows.
      • PowerPoint 2010 no longer displays blank slides.
      • Fixed bugs in Word 2010 which caused the equation editor to be missing structures and formulas.
      • Fixed a bug in Word 2010 related to footnote style choices.
      • Project 2007 and 2010 can now edit dates for recurring tasks.
      • Fixed a crash in Project 2010 when filtering by resource name.
      • Visio 2002 can now search for new shapes.
      • Visio 2010 now displays properly when multiple shapes are open.
    • Star Trek Online is now faster during game updates.
    • Quicken 2009 no longer has garbled text on its buttons.
    • An issue with installation of .Net 3.5 SP1 was resolved.
    • World of Warcraft has had fixes related to patching and installation.
  • CrossOver and Wine:
    • CrossOver is now based on Wine 1.5.15.
    • CrossOver's built-in web-browser will offer to download and install ActiveX controls.
    • CrossOver now comes bundled with the Wine-Mono package, an alternative implementation of the .Net API.
    • CrossOver now implements Raw Input, the set of APIs used for mouse input by games like Guild Wars 2, World of Tanks, and others.
    • Support for printing on a variety of paper sizes has been improved.
    • DirectSound has a new resampler, for higher quality audio.
    • CrossOver now has sub-pixel font anti-aliasing.

 Run Microsoft Windows Applications and Games on Mac, Linux or ChromeOS save up to 20% off  CodeWeavers CrossOver+ today.


Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac



Thursday, December 13, 2012

CodeWeavers CrossOver 12 for Linux MAC and FreeBSD

CrossOver 12.0 runs Windows apps on Mac and Linux --without Windows
Improved Outlook support, Quicken 2011, more Windows apps. Give your Mac or Linux system ActiveX in Internet Explorer, launched directly from the Finder or Applications Menu.
CrossOver runs Left4Dead, Warcraft, Steam, Spore, and many other Games on your Mac or Linux system

Starts at only $40 (and no need to buy Windows!) Free trial from CodeWeavers.
Click here for more.



Putty for Mac
Putty for Mac
$15.00

https://winereviews.onfastspring.com/putty-for-mac


Friday, November 16, 2012

How to install DirectX in Linux using Wine

Would you like to play the latest and greatest Windows games? Sure. In Linux? Sure. Now comes the tricky question, how exactly do you do that? Linux uses OpenGL, whereas most Windows games rely on DirectX. No problem. That's what Wine is made for.

I've mentioned Wine in my Linux gaming mega howto, as one of the tools that allow you to run Windows games in Linux, for whatever reason you may want to do so. The results may vary and may not be perfect, but you can still manage a handsome array of games easily.

What prompted me to try running one of the Windows heavyweight games on Linux was the pure simple hardware limitation. The game in question was Tropico 3, a fabulous dictatorship simulation with some pretty hefty requirements, including 2GB of RAM and at least 256MB Nvidia 6600GT card. As it turns out, my two older Athlons both running Windows and equipped with Nvidia 6600GT and 7600GT cards were not exactly tailored for this game. But if you recall, I've just recently bought myself a shiny new laptop, with the powerful Nvidia 9600GS card with 512MB VRAM. So I figured, what the hell, it's worth a try.

What I did was install DirectX 9.0c in Linux using Wine and then installed Tropico 3. Lo and behold, it works, beautifully. I can play the game with details set to high without any problems or glitches, everything runs smoothly and even the sound quality is great.



In this article, you will learn how to install DirectX using Wine. It's not simple, but it's not difficult either. And then, the world's your oyster. I hope you will enjoy this guide, plus you get a few dandy Tropico 3 screenshots. A full review will come later.
Follow me.

Install Wine

This is simple. Just open the package manager and install the software.

Configure DirectX libraries

This is the most complicated step of all. But do not worry, you get everything, step by step.
Launch Wine configuration. You can either do it via the Application menu in your distro, Wine > Configure Wine or by running winecfg from the command line. Once the main menu opens, click on the Libraries tab. 

WINE
This tab allows you to specify the behavior of different DLLs and override the possible defaults. To get DirectX running, you will need a long list of DLLs listed. The first step is to click on the New override dropdown box icon and expand the list. Search for the d3d8 DLL. Once found, click Add.
Choose library
It will be added to the Existing overrides list like this: d3d8 (builtin,native).
This is not what we need. Therefore, you must select the DLL in the list and click Edit. Then, change the configuration to builtin only.
Edit
There's a very long list of DLLs and specifying them manually would be a torture. Luckily, you can hack the Wine registry directly and add the desired overrides as a list into the file, without going through the manual process of specifying each one using the GUI.
To edit the registry, open the file in text editor (e.g. gedit):
gedit ~/.wine/user.reg
In the file, look for the section labeled DllOverrides:
Registry
In this section, you can copy & paste the entire list of DLL overrides required. You can find the entire list in this great article. Copy the entire selection, save the file and exit. The next time you launch Wine configuration, the overrides will be loaded.
Eventually, you'll see something like this: 

Libraries
This is the first step. Now, we need to setup some core files.

Setup core files

These files may or may not be required, but it does not hurt to have them anyway. The two files in question are mscoree.dll and streamci.dll. The first is a module containing .NET Framework functions, the second is a library used to install streaming hardware devices.
You can copy these files from your Windows installations, if you have some, or download them from the web. A good online source that offers these file is DLL-files.com.
Download the two files and copy them to the Wine system32 folder.
cp mscoree.dll ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/
cp streamci.dll ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/
The next step is to download the DirectX 9.0c redistributable package.

Download DirectX 9.0c

You need the redistributable package, because the installation won't handle the online installer well. Once the file is downloaded, run the executable with Wine.
wine directx_9c_redist.exe
This will start a wizard, which will ask you to accept the license and extract the files to a folder. Choose any folder and extract the files there. 

License
Path

Install DirectX 9.0c

Navigate to the folder and run the actual DirectX setup:
wine dxsetup.exe 
 
Begin install
Ready
The installer should complete without any problems. It will ask you to reboot, but you do not need to do that.

Test DirectX 9.0c

Now, let's test. Go to the system32 folder (inside the .wine folder) and run dxdiag.exe.
wine ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/dxdiag.exe
If everything went as it should, you should have DirectX setup and enabled. You can ignore most of the device and driver information, since we're doing a rather decent hack here. 

Good
Display

Setup Direct Music

If you also want to have enhanced sound effects and whatnot, you will need another driver. The file in question is called gm.dls and you can find it listed on several websites, available for download. Again, use discretion when downloading files like this. Make sure they are digitally signed by Microsoft, with the proper size and hash value. Likewise, checking these files against Jotti or VirusTotal may not hurt.
You can find the file here (direct download). Copy the file to system32/drivers:
cp gm.dls ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/system32/drivers/
After doing this, rerun dxdiag and check the Music tab.

Setup additional files

Your games may also require additional DLLs that are not found above. You will discover this only after installing them and running them, which is the step below. If you have already found online references that mention additional DLLs are needed for your games, then you can install them before trying the game, saving yourself time.
For example, Tropico 3 requires d3dx9_41.dll, without which the game start will fail. The above subset includes only d3dx9_24.dll and d3dx9_36.dll, but not the latest one. No worries, head to DLL-files.com and download the missing item(s).

Install and test your games!

Time to try your games. In my case, Tropico 3 installed without any problems, followed by the 1.04 patch, which solves lots of issues in the original game. Starting the game without the d3dx9_41.dll resulted in a failure, but once I copied the missing item into the system32 folder, everything worked fine.
The game runs smoothly even on high level - considering the hacks we just did, this is impressive. The sound quality is great. The game is stable. It's really a pleasure. A real blast! 

Image 1
Image 2
Image 3
What more, you can make things faster even more!

Tweaks

Wine prints lots of debugging messages to the console, slowing things down a bit. You can definitely improve the performance by prepending a Wine debug environment variable to the wine command line, allowing yourself even more Frames Per Second (FPS) in your games.
Just run the game executable like this:
WINEDEBUG=-all wine
Example:
WINEDEBUG=-all wine Tropico3.exe