CrossOver Office Details (was: Re: [TriLUG] ! --> Quickbooks replacement)

[Scott G. Hall]

I have gotten enough requests regarding how I got CrossOver Office 3.0.1
to install MS Office XP, and in the process evidently cure some problems
in installing some other software as well, that I am going ahead and
posting here.

It boiled down to looking at the log file details, and fishing through
Microsoft's own support pages on known problems.  The problems don't
seem to be in Codeweaver's version of WINE, but in what other vendor's
software are expecting to already exist in in MS-Windows -- they have
coded to maladys and mistakes as if they were the normal, and even MS's
own software suffers from this.

I sent this to Codeweavers in Oct, and they said they might be able to
account for some of these issues in the X-Ofc 4.0 release.

--------------Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 11:58 pm
               Post subject: Re: MS Ofc XP on CrossOver--------------

I finally got it to work, but it wasn't easy. It must be common problems 
installing on real MS Windows systems, because every one of the problems turns 
out to be documented on the Microsoft support site. I had to weed through the 
text of the error messages, the installation log files, and several articles on 
Microsoft's website.

It turns out that MS Office XP has problems installing on real Win-XP systems, 
with the exact same errors. And these errors must be fairly common, because 
there are tech support articles on them on MS's website.

As if that isn't enough, after you solve one problem, there is another that is 
also documented on MS's website. And another after that. It took 9 shots through 
the errors to final get an install.

The first error is regarding "system files" needing installed. Microsoft 
documents this in their article 286398

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;286398

My copy of MS Office XP Standard Edition for Students & Teachers does not have 
the required 'msagent' server on its CD's. So you have to go to Microsoft's MS 
Agent page to download a free copy:

http://www.microsoft.com/products/msagent/default.asp

And of course it won't install with the instructions included (of course using 
Crossover's installation of "unsupported" software exe file). So you have to go 
to Microsoft's troubleshooting page about this:

http://www.microsoft.com/products/msagent/support/user/install.asp

After trying to follow those instructions, you get another error about needing 
"system files" that don't seem to be on the CD. This leads us to another 
documented problem: 304907

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304907

This leads you to edit the window's registry files in the ~/.cxoffice/dotwine 
directory (*.reg), and download another file, MSDE2000:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=413744D1-A0BC-479F-BAFA-E4B278EB9147&displaylang=en

Are we having fun yet?

You also have to manually install the latest Internet Explorer directly from the 
Crossover Office installer (it knows how to download it directly), and use the 
installer to install all of the suggested font files. I got this from the 
Crossover manual, and from Codeweaver's website. (Use the Debian suggestions to 
add these to share folders for use in X-Windows and Open Office/Star Office; 
this way you have the same fonts for MS Office and Star Office)

You also end up with another downloaded file "tv_enua.exe" from the Microsoft 
downloads that the Microsoft docs say you need to fix this, but it won't install 
in Crossover Office.

No matter, if you now try installing the MS Office XP CD, the system files now 
seem to be in place and it goes into installing the software itself. This part 
works without a hitch. Total downloaded files needed to make this work:

MSagent.exe, MSDE2000A.exe, ReadmeMSDE2000A.htm, tv_enua.exe

and CrossOver's auto-download of MS-IE and font files.

If anyone wants a copy of the verbose log files during these installation
steps, just ask -- they are large and many.

--------------end of transcript of posting--------------

-- 
Scott G. Hall
Raleigh, NC, USA
ScottGHall at BellSouth.Net