macBlogger – Apple Mac Blog

This is a guest post featuring a superb promotion for the excellent OS X software CrossOver, from CodeWeavers.

What is CodeWeavers?

We are Minnesota based software company, that authors the corporate version of the Wine Project. Our software will allow you to run Windows-based applications on your Mac, as if it were in a native environment. A couple of unique aspects of our software: no need to load a Windows OS on your Mac, doesn’t tie up your Mac’s resources, and don’t need to restart to jump between Windows and Mac environments.

We recently successfully launched a new version of CrossOver, CrossOver 9.0, which has improved support for MS Office 2007 and its macros, as well as Internet Explorer 7. Also, in the coming weeks, we will be releasing CrossOver Games 9.0 which will have better support for games such as Star Trek Online and Team Fortress 2. We also have a 30 day fully functional trial version, so you can always check to see the support of your application, before you have to make a decision to purchase.

For those of you who are interested in purchasing our software, I am going to provide a Special Deal Code, which will save you 25% off the purchase price. In the Special Deal Box (located in the view cart/checkout screen) enter: MACBLOGGER (All one word and all in CAPS) If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at cdelzer@codeweavers.com or visit our website at www.codeweavers.com.

I was a bit disappointed when Preview failed to open up a .chm file which accompanied some software which I recently downloaded.

.Chm is a filetype devised by Micrsoft which compresses HTML files into a single document, usually for the purpose of software manuals and the like.

A quick Google lead me to an open source application by the name of  Chomx which effortlessly opens CHM files. The interface for the application is as simple as you’d expect and resembles Preview in many ways. It even has a “drawer” for jumping between pages.

I know we have dedicated a few posts in recent days to running native Windows applications on Mac but we can’t help it!

So, what options are available for running Windows apps on Macs?

• Parallels allows you to run XP/Vista virtually within Mac OS X, but for a price.
• Fusion is the alternative to Parallels, but that too comes at a price.
• Crossover can run .exe files within OS X, at a price.
• Bootcamp permits you to boot up XP/Vista on an Intel Macintosh machine, for free!

So that makes Bootcamp the only solution for those who hate parting with their cash. While the other three products allow you to run Windows and OS X simultaneously, Bootcamp restricts you to either choosing to load up Windows or OS X at start up. If you want to run .exe applications on top of Mac, you’re going to have to splash some cash, or maybe not..

Enter Darwine
The Wiki entry for Darwine states that it’s a port of the Wine libraries to Mac OS X. So what is Wine?

Wine is a project which aims to allow a PC with an x86 architecture processor running a Unix-like operating system and the X Window System to execute programs that were originally written for Microsoft Windows

There is more technical jibberings about Wine on its Wiki entry but all you need to know is that Darwine works and it’s an Open Source project hosted on Source Forge. In other words it costs €0.00 to download, install and use.

Of all the applications which can run .exe applications in a Mac environment, it is Crossover which resembles the functionality of Darwine the most. Crossover doesn’t come for free though.

When I first found Crossover, I attempted to run and install the Windows application; Google Talk. Crossover didn’t install the application correctly but nor did Darwine. I assume it’s due to an authentication feature on Google Talk to prevent a cloaking of the user agent or something like that.

After failing once again to install Google Talk on Mac, I attempted to install the Windows version of Filezilla. While Filezilla is available on Mac as a beta, it is very buggy. The below screenshot was taken during the installation process and it indicates a successful installation (click image to enlarge).

The good news is that Filezilla worked a charm! I managed to install, run, connect to a FTP account and install all these beautiful screenshots without any issues. Click the image below to see Filezilla running under Darwine.

With Darwine, you can do some pretty cool things on Mac which you couldn’t do before. Such as install Internet Explorer on Mac.
Why would you want to do that?
- Well, if you’re a web developer then you’re a slave to Internet Explorer no matter which Operating System you use.

But, if you’re a serious developer you should have a Windows machine close to hand for testing against browser and OS compatibility. If you can’t afford or justify having a dedicated Windows machine, then Bootcamp or maybe even an online emulator such as Site Vista might suit you better.

So that’s Darwine. A handy application to have close at hand. It may not work with every Windows application but it won’t cost you past a free trial of Crossover, Parallels or Fusion to find if a compatibility issue exists.