Amazon Kindle for PC Forum

I downloaded the Kindle for PC onto my macbook, and the window for it shows up, but there is no text for any of the menus, so I cannot even tell what I am doing. By the rating, it looks like someone already got this working on a mac. Any solution?

you'll need to use a win98 bucket- anything higher (winxp/vista) will fail to render any fonts.

Using win98 bucket with IE6 does enable you to see something but, under Ubuntu, the UI fonts seem to be bit-maps and are missing a lot of the bits! It makes for tough reading. Also the Kindle app is very slow compared to other Windows apps. I cannot get my registration to stick and can't view downloaded books - and I did check on the amazon.com side to see that the book was "sent"

Hi,

We actually call them 'bottles' here in crossover, not 'buckets'....<grin>...

But onto your problem...

Install kindle into a fresh bottle using the win98 bottle profile
After installation, in cxsetup, highlight the bottle you installed kindle into
Now click on Configure => Control Panel => winecfg
In the winecfg GUI, click on the Graphics tab
On the graphics tab, at the bottom, you will see 'Screen Resolution' -- it is defaultly set at 96dpi
Change this value to 118dpi or more -- some experimentation is in order here to get the dpi 'right' for your taste/setup

This should clear up the fonts markedly - let me know how it goes....

Cheers!

Heh. I don't know why I wrote "bucket" when I was clearly thinking "bottle". Thanks for the correction- and the tip on screen resolution.

On to another question- I've noticed that each time I open the Kindle application, it re-registers with Amazon. I've ended up with a number of "Kindle for PC" devices- have any of you noticed the same behavior?

I'm digging into why it appears to forget its existing registry... will update shortly.

t

Hi again,

I think a dpi of 105 is the 'bottom threshold' for noticeable improves with
fonts (something I forgot to mention)....

Regarding the registering issue, sorry, I don't actually use Kindle myself.

Cheers!

Hi Thomas,

When you get a spare moment, can you please update your tip&trick here
regarding font rendering and the dpi value fix? If you find out anything
about the registering issue, let us know...

Cheers!

It would be great if you could publish a step-by-step document on installing the Kindle Ereader. I'd love to get this to work on my ubuntu notebook.

Kelvin Barnes wrote:

It would be great if you could publish a step-by-step document on
installing the Kindle Ereader. I'd love to get this to work on my
ubuntu notebook.

Hi,

The tip&trick here is about as straight-forward as it gets...see;

http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/browse/name/?app_id=6636;tips=1

However, if any of that confuses you, let us know...

Cheers!

Kindle doesn't work with Crossover. I have the same problem as the poster above.

I installed using a clean Win98 bottle. Kindle starts up, however, you cannot save your registration and downloaded books do not work.

Are the people having problems on Linux? I'm on a MAC and it seems to work fine. ie, I randomly downloaded one of my archived books and read it without a problem.

I followed the advice on this thread and installed Kindle in a Win98 bottle. It installed OK, but every time I launch it, it tries to open then quits. Any help is appreciated.

Drew wrote:

Kindle doesn't work with Crossover. I have the same problem as the
poster above.

I installed using a clean Win98 bottle. Kindle starts up, however,
you cannot save your registration and downloaded books do not work.

I have the same problem. Cannot download books and after closing Kindle it will not open again unless I quit Crossover. Also, must enter registration info every time.

Then, of the 5 books I own, I can download only 1. All the others say they can't be download and to delete and try again. It never works!

What version of Crossover are you using, what OS, etc? I'm not sure anyone can even guess at the problem without more information.

More information:

Mac OS X 10.6.2, Snow Leopard
Crossover version 8.0.3
Clean Win98 bottle with IE 6.0 installed before Kindle

Barton L. Bennett wrote:

I followed the advice on this thread and installed Kindle in a Win98
bottle. It installed OK, but every time I launch it, it tries to
open then quits. Any help is appreciated.

I'm having the same issue. Any ideas?

OSX 10.6.2
Crossover 8.0.3

Hi,

I just rechecked this with linux/CXO-8.0.3 - no apparent problems (apart from the registration
popping up when you start the app)..

win98 bottle => pre-install IE6 + Core Fonts => Emulate a virtual desktop ENABLED, desktop_size 1024x768, screen_resolution DPI=115
install Kindle_for_PC
*download and read book without problem

If you haven't enabled 'emulate a virtual desktop' (in winecfg) try that in case it's required.

If it still doesn't work, must be some Mac issue...let us know how it goes..

Cheers!

Same problems.

So you're able to download 1 out of 5 books and you need to keep entering registration on every startup?

What happens with the other 4 books? Errors or just doesn't do anything or something else? What Mac platform and video card are you on?

First, thanks so much for trying to fix this. I appreciate it.

When I try to download a book it says something like "This book cannot be downloaded, delete it and try again." Of course, when I delete and try again, same thing happens.

@Barton - I just downloaded another copy of the Kindle for PC app and I'm having problems that I didn't see previously. I'm wondering if they've updated something and now its breaking Crossover. I'll fiddle with it some more later.

@Don - Did you download another copy of the Kindle app or did you use an older one?

abeta wrote:

@Barton - I just downloaded another copy of the Kindle for PC app
and I'm having problems that I didn't see previously. I'm wondering
if they've updated something and now its breaking Crossover. I'll
fiddle with it some more later.

@Don - Did you download another copy of the Kindle app or did you
use an older one?

@abeta - thanks for mentioning this ; I did indeed use the old installer I had sitting here
on the hdrive, I'll grab the latest offering and redo the test (it's not as though they go
on to disclose any versioning info...bad practice imho)...

I see there's a Mac version in the works, so things should get better for Mac users when
that version is released. More later...

Cheers!

The installers are indeed different (filesize differs), but that said the only
difference in behavior I observed, was that the 'current' download version doesn't
exit cleanly....other than that, the program behaved identically to the one I tested
earlier...

...I still have the older download here if anyone wants it...

Cheers!

@Don - I agree, no versioning is more than annoying. Thanks for the info on the different installers but similar behaviour to you. The Mac version coming will help those that use the application I think. I don't use it as it only handles books that I buy from Amazon. Any 3rd party books aren't handled so I use MobiReader as my normal reader or the iPhone Kindle App :).

That said, I have completely different behaviour on my Macs.

MacBook Pro w/ATI video (OS X 10.6.2, Crossover 8.03) - Kindle for PC doesn't work at the moment.
MacPro w/NVidia video (OS X 10.6.2, Crossover 8.03) - Works as people indicated above. You have to enter registration every time.
MacBook Pro w/Nvidia video (OS X 10.6.2, Crossover 8.03) - Works and needs registration only once.

Bleh. I can't see any reason the app would care about the video, etc.

Hmm....that is weird, eh?...the MacPro & MacBook Pro...both with nvidia
chipset...what nvidia models are they exactly?

FYI...the version string is in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Amazon\Kindle For PC\

edit: wrt the Ati carded model, does futzing about with the regkeys;

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wine\Direct3D]
"DirectDrawRenderer"="gdi"
"OffscreenRenderingMode"="fbo"
"UseGLSL"="enable"

..make any difference?

MacBook Pro w/Nvidia has a 9400/9600GT. It is currently in 9600GT mode. The MacPro has an Nvidia 8800GT.

I haven't had time to play with the registry keys yet. I'll probably futz with them tomorrow :).

@abeta

I'm using a very recent download -- like 2-3 days ago.

Barton L. Bennett wrote:

@abeta

I'm using a very recent download -- like 2-3 days ago.

Yep. Don's response that he except for the installer failure getting the same results prompted me to check my other Macs out...getting different results which is very odd.

I'll fiddle with the registry settings on my MacBook ATI later.

Just to add to the confusion, what Mac and video card do you have? Does it match one of the findings I posted earlier? ie, I know your behaviour matches one of my Macs, but was wondering if the hardware matched too.

Although...I'm not sure how the video would affect the registration or non-registration. I can understand it not working outright as it is probably crashing and needs to be tweaked, but the registration one if funky.

NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT

MacBookPro3,1 - 2.4 GHz
OS 10.6.2
Crossover 8.0.3

Thanks for your help!

@Barton - Interesting....another deviation from what I've seen. So....I have a question and a theory. Is the 1 out of 5 books you're able to download "freeware" from Amazon? ie, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (http://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Sherlock-Holmes-ebook/dp/B000JQU1VS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1265915954&sr=1-1)? The 4 out of 5 that you get failures on are "purchased" or "copyrighted" books from Amazon?

@Don - Can you post the older installer somewhere I can pull or check something for me quickly for me?

Are you testing with freeware books from Amazon as well? If so, can you add this one to your book list (it's free for now) but I'm thinking it has DRM in it and won't work. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002RI9TZU/?tag=booksontheknob-20 You get a free book to be my guinea pig :).

@Barton - If you're bored you can try the same test. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and the book above.

My theory at the moment is that something is preventing the Kindle for PC app on Crossover from Mac from working when it is trying to verify DRM within the book itself. ie, It will allow you to register only 6 copies or something like that.

Still noodling it, but if that's the problem not sure how to fix it. It isn't a firewall issue, etc as that was the first thing I checked :).

The book I can download is not freeware. It is "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator." It costs only $3.99. I downloaded Sherlock Holmes freeware and it works fine also.

One more thing. The book does appear to download. I was mistaken when I told you it said it would not download. Actually, it says "This book cannot be opened. Please remove the book from your device and redownload it." Then it process to say it is downloading and just spins.

Another thing: all the books I had on Kindle prior to Sherlock Holmes had been purchased on my iPhone, not on my Crossover PC, if that helps.

Another observation: It appears that the books it won't open are the longer ones. The two shorter books I have open.

The registration every time Kindle opens is also a problems since it will get to the point that Amazon says you have too many Kindles registered. Of course, you can deregister them, but that's a pain.

@abeta

Tried the free book you recommended, Equivoque Principal. It has the same problems, won't open.

abeta wrote:

snip<

@Don - Can you post the older installer somewhere I can pull or
check something for me quickly for me?

Are you testing with freeware books from Amazon as well? If so, can
you add this one to your book list (it's free for now) but I'm
thinking it has DRM in it and won't work.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002RI9TZU/?tag=booksontheknob-20 You get a
free book to be my guinea pig :).

snip<

My theory at the moment is that something is preventing the Kindle
for PC app on Crossover from Mac from working when it is trying to
verify DRM within the book itself. ie, It will allow you to register
only 6 copies or something like that.

Still noodling it, but if that's the problem not sure how to fix it.
It isn't a firewall issue, etc as that was the first thing I checked
:).

@abeta -- you have mail!

Unfortunately, Amazon discriminates based on locale - that book not available to me
(censorship at it's worst, Amazons - the world's literary police ;)...but yes, I was
testing free books, and it looks like I miss out on becoming your guinea-pig. (that's
OK, I'm someone else's guinea-pig right now anyway). I think possibly it'd be worth
looking at in a VM under XP or such - check registry after installing kindle4PC. start
the program, register, quit => restart (shouldn't prompt you to reregister) if it doesn't,
recheck the registry to see if something was added - compare to bottle registry...something
of this nature...(to look at the registerng issue)...

Regarding the OP's problem....well, that's looking stranger considering his test of your
test content works, plus one of his purchased titles...I'd be trying the older version
just to doublecheck the behavior and ensure it's not the latest version getting it wrong...

Cheers!

Yeah, something is definitely strange.

@Barton - Hmmm.....short books work but not long ones for you? How short is your short book? ie, Are you referring to size of the file, page count? I'm wondering if I have a short one in my library I can pull. I'll check later. It also doesn't matter where you buy it as I'm now seeing the same problem you are. All of my books are bought for my Kindle 1. I read them every so often on my iPhone is all.

I agree, its a pain. I also misspoke, the one where it isn't badgering me for registration has the same problem where it can't pull books (same exact error as you're seeing). So while it isn't badgering me the inability to pull books renders the registration useless. I had pulled some "freeware" from Amazon and thought it was working until I tripped into this.

@Don - Doh! Amazon thugs! I'm going to try and build a VM to muck with this. My normal Fusion VM is also my work one where I don't mess with it at all :). I'll also check me email after work.

I think Barton is right about timing now. I can't pull War and Peace correctly so my theory doesn't work.

I like Don's email and link :). Anyway, pulled it and installed it, still having the same problems so I don't think it is the version now. I'll see if I can get a VM going later tonight but might be tomorrow.

@abeta: Mr Nobody strikes again from the absolute end of the internet! Thought you'd like that :)

Did a bit of digging....have a read of this thread ;

http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/forum?_encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSESG&cdThread=Tx3R98JV92K3TDY&displayType=tagsDetail

From the symptoms/solutions discussed there, I'm starting to think the angle here
might be to nail this registration business down...looks like the culprit to me...

More later...

Cheers!

abeta wrote:

-snip-<

That said, I have completely different behaviour on my Macs.

MacBook Pro w/ATI video (OS X 10.6.2, Crossover 8.03) - Kindle for
PC doesn't work at the moment.
MacPro w/NVidia video (OS X 10.6.2, Crossover 8.03) - Works as
people indicated above. You have to enter registration every time.
MacBook Pro w/Nvidia video (OS X 10.6.2, Crossover 8.03) - Works and
needs registration only once.

Bleh. I can't see any reason the app would care about the video,
etc.

@abeta - I've had a couple of hours to look at this -- can you confirm for me your MacBook Pro w/Nvidia 9400/9600GT
is actually playing the game 'properly' wrt the registration only needing to be done once please?

..also...there's something decidedly weird happening here....ie; start kindle4pc, the registration screen pops up
(yet again..), hit 'continue without registering'...any ebooks already downloaded, should be still available and loadable.
Now..here's the kicker, go back to 'Home' => 'Shop in Kindle Store' => this should spawn IE which believes you are
actually logged in. I'm starting to think that a codepath is blocking the response from the amazon servers to the
kindle4pc client, and apparently not so for IE6 (which believes we/the client software has successfully intialized
with the amazon servers over an ssl inet connection)..

@Barton - might you confirm this behavior too please?

I've had a look in the VM (using winXP for now, I'll crank up a win98 VM a bit later) -- the registration process leaves
no registry entries or file traces ; best I can figure it, the whole process is done live 'on the fly' as it were (which
makes sense) -- I'm going to need quiz the amazon folks for a bit of confirmation here...ie; if you generate say 6 kindle
registrations, it seems you can buy a book for any one instance, and the book becomes available in all 6 instances (yes,
4 VM's going two with linux installs) - I sort of need to know from the amazon folks if all 6 registrations have the same
credentials, or whether that's inconsequential (not specifically based on machine credentials) and everything is hooked
against account credentials instead. I begin to think if we can isolate why this won't run in a xp bottle, and get it to,
we'll probably solve a lot of this....

Onwards ever onwards...

Cheers!

edit: oh...the contra-test case for above => start the IE installed into the kindle bottle => go to the amazon store page ;
here, IE displays the page as if I'm logged in - it's obviously caching credentials somewhere => start kindle4pc, and the
registration GUI appears --- I need to try discover if the two processes are supposed to be sharing resources...

Artist Formally Known as Dot wrote:

-snip-<

@abeta - I've had a couple of hours to look at this -- can you
confirm for me your MacBook Pro w/Nvidia 9400/9600GT
is actually playing the game 'properly' wrt the registration only
needing to be done once please?

..also...there's something decidedly weird happening here....ie;
start kindle4pc, the registration screen pops up
(yet again..), hit 'continue without registering'...any ebooks
already downloaded, should be still available and loadable.
Now..here's the kicker, go back to 'Home' => 'Shop in Kindle Store'
=> this should spawn IE which believes you are
actually logged in. I'm starting to think that a codepath is
blocking the response from the amazon servers to the
kindle4pc client, and apparently not so for IE6 (which believes
we/the client software has successfully intialized
with the amazon servers over an ssl inet connection)..

@Barton - might you confirm this behavior too please?

I've had a look in the VM (using winXP for now, I'll crank up a
win98 VM a bit later) -- the registration process leaves
no registry entries or file traces ; best I can figure it, the whole
process is done live 'on the fly' as it were (which
makes sense) -- I'm going to need quiz the amazon folks for a bit of
confirmation here...ie; if you generate say 6 kindle
registrations, it seems you can buy a book for any one instance, and
the book becomes available in all 6 instances (yes,
4 VM's going two with linux installs) - I sort of need to know from
the amazon folks if all 6 registrations have the same
credentials, or whether that's inconsequential (not specifically
based on machine credentials) and everything is hooked
against account credentials instead. I begin to think if we can
isolate why this won't run in a xp bottle, and get it to,
we'll probably solve a lot of this....

Onwards ever onwards...

Cheers!

edit: oh...the contra-test case for above => start the IE installed
into the kindle bottle => go to the amazon store page ;
here, IE displays the page as if I'm logged in - it's obviously
caching credentials somewhere => start kindle4pc, and the
registration GUI appears --- I need to try discover if the two
processes are supposed to be sharing resources...

In one of my later posts when I had thought it was a DRM issue, it took back my statement of it working. It was the order of events that made it look like it was working. ie, I had pulled a couple of freeware books that allowed it to work and then went about my business as I was planning on using it. So no, the current state is the MacBook Pro w/ATI won't start (crashes) but I'm not concerned about that one at the moment. Both the Macbook Pro w/Nvivia and MacPro won't pull books consistently like Barton mentioned and they're both prompting me now.

I've read the Amazon Kindle App is probably doing something on the fly as a number of people have mentioned there's really nothing hidden in the registry or files to prevent the hacking of the DRM but this is all speculation :).

You are allowed up to 6 or something like that of "registrations" that will allow you to view the books on any platform. ie. You can buy it on the iPhone and when you download it, it becomes 1 of the registrations, then you can view it on any 5 other platforms whether it is the Kindle, PC, iPhone, etc. Doesn't matter. All of the books are registered to the account you are logging in with.

If you go to the Amazon webpage and manage your account, you can register/deregister any device and there's also an option for you to tell it where to deliver the books, etc :).

That said, I'm not sure if it hides something somewhere (which would make sense or you'd be forced to enter your credentials all the time) that it reads but there's definitely something it presents to Amazon which distinguishes itself as a unique platform. ie, I usually have one or two books loaded on my iPhone, but ALL of the books loaded on my Kindle.

abeta wrote:

snip<

You are allowed up to 6 or something like that of "registrations"
that will allow you to view the books on any platform. ie. You can
buy it on the iPhone and when you download it, it becomes 1 of the
registrations, then you can view it on any 5 other platforms whether
it is the Kindle, PC, iPhone, etc. Doesn't matter. All of the books
are registered to the account you are logging in with.

snip<

This is my point exactly - when you start kindle4pc, it doesn't think you're logged-in | if
you start 'manage my kindles' or the 'shop' widgets, the ie6 interface shows you -have- logged
in - my suspicion is it's tossing the registration GUI up because it cannot negotiate the login
session system - ie6 gets the tokens right. I just did a comparative test using the older kindle4pc
release and wine-1.1.36 -- here, it runs happily in winxp mode, nice crisp fonts, you don't have
to touch anything to get that far ; that said, the registration thing keeps popping up, and the
token handling goes wrong with the kindle client tossing the URL to the ie6 process...so these
things have stopped working in 1.1.36 - at least I have a fix now on where this stuff is happening..

@Don - Sorry about the delay, we've got snow here so power has been iffy. That said, I'm not sure its limited to just that as I have another ODD behaviour that I absolutely can't explain.

I built an XP VM inside of VMWare Fusion and installed Kindle trying to see what files they might have modded, etc. I went ahead and downloaded say 3-4 books of a mix of free and paid content. I SHUT the VM down.

I now startup Crossover's Kindle App. Those SAME 3-4 books I downloaded in the VM are now in the Crossover Kindle. I NEVER downloaded those books to the Crossover Bottle?!?! Soo...how did they get in there? I haven't registered in the bottle yet and even if I register in the bottle I still can't open the books.

The bottle and the VM don't share any files or structures other than they're on the same PHYSICAL machine. I don't see any unusual processes or anything on the Mac.

Curiouser and curiouser.

I think you're right that it is tied to the session and registration somehow...but I'm not sure how now.

abeta wrote:

@Don - Sorry about the delay, we've got snow here so power has been
iffy. That said, I'm not sure its limited to just that as I have
another ODD behaviour that I absolutely can't explain.

I built an XP VM inside of VMWare Fusion and installed Kindle trying
to see what files they might have modded, etc. I went ahead and
downloaded say 3-4 books of a mix of free and paid content. I SHUT
the VM down.

I now startup Crossover's Kindle App. Those SAME 3-4 books I
downloaded in the VM are now in the Crossover Kindle. I NEVER
downloaded those books to the Crossover Bottle?!?! Soo...how did
they get in there? I haven't registered in the bottle yet and even
if I register in the bottle I still can't open the books.

The bottle and the VM don't share any files or structures other than
they're on the same PHYSICAL machine. I don't see any unusual
processes or anything on the Mac.

Curiouser and curiouser.

I think you're right that it is tied to the session and registration
somehow...but I'm not sure how now.

This actually confirms my suspicions - you have to 'reverse logic' a lot of this program behavior from what's
there in front of you on amazon's website. Some of it's not immediately obvious - consider that once upon a time,
there was no 'kindle4pc' application. Instead, the only kindles out there, were 'real' kindles...ie; the hardware
ebook reader itself. Now, if you register a real kindle reader (the hardware device), you have to enter it's
serial number that's on the back of it's case...correct? As you say, one can have 6 kindle devices registered - you
may have these registered under the same email_address/password pairing it seems, but, each kindle registration
would be unique in itself, as bounded by the serial number you entered that's different for each kindle reader you
have...uh-huh? On the amazon website, this hypothetical is exposed in the ebook purchase operation -- that is to
say, when purchasing any book, one can decide to which of the 6 kindle accounts one has, that book is assigned to
(which inturn dictates which of the 6 real kindle devices you own is capable of downloading/accessing which ebook
purchase)...so, for instance, 'Dad' could buy everyone in his house a kindle for Christmas, and also buy kids books
for his kids, adult books for his partner and himself, and each book ends up in the right electronic library ..ie;
each individual kindle...

These same things are possible, using the software kindle4pc client - the significant EDP point is, you don't have
to enter the serial number that's visible on the back of a real Kindle - the software itself is generating it's
own unique serial number identifier (CLSID) on the fly using the OS kernel. Okay, so we're using we're not using a
real OS kernel in wine, but we achieve the same ends via the wine engine....now....this generated number, will be
algorithm encoded from numbers available from the hardware platform itself and/or unique CLSID key identifiers
in (each) windows installation itself...umm...for instance, if I say grab one of my direct2drive titles and it fires
up it's securom7 based online registration (which also doesn't work I hasten to point out), it generates a unique
key number I can email back to their support folks for an 'unlock' code....if I run the same title in a VM on this
same hardware, the unique key number generated is different..et_voila, your equivalent to a hardcopy serial number :)

In the amazons/kindle4pc case, this bit's all going wrong. My guess is the ie6 installation is validating itself via
other means (it's certainly possible for it to do so anyway)...it'll be doing this on the email/password login pairing
assigned to your amazons account and cookie passing -- it doesn't care what hardware you're on...ie; you're buying an
ebook, on your iphone, for one of your kids' kindles or kindle4pc installations...this is on a different level afaict.
The kindle4pc client software has to go that step further - it has to provide the same account credentials + it's own
unique instance identifier <- this isn't happening the way it should be. This part, is polemical at the moment...I
know it's happening, I just don't know what's happening where - when I posted earlier about needing something back
from amazon support?...we need the numbers (or need to know if we're throwing any numbers at all, a blank hash, an empty
field...or instead we -are- throwing the correct/same credentials, it's just not the kindle4pc client our end getting
the amazon server response of a successful connection/login...and it throws up the registration gui instead)...really
hard to say without some feedback from the amazon folks really, and you always sort of need that when you're dealing
with things online/server-side based. This I suspect explains your encounter - server-side information told your kindle4pc
client software that your -account- login credentials says you have books x,y,z assigned to 'kindle number' blablablah.
This actual number, will differ for sure - the VM generated number will be different from the one generated by wine.

Btw, the latest kindle4pc client did not get along with wine-1.1.36 at all ... mysterious fail to start illness with
nothing really obvious in debug to explain it. The latest kindle4pc client ships with it's own ssl .dll files - I do
not know how significant that is wrt client side operations in wine, whether you'd need to assign winelib overrides
for those or even perhaps also register their location in the registry to begin with - what I do know is the newer
version reliably hangs on exit in CXO and so at present, if I used this software everyday, I'd be using the older
download version...

I suspect due to the nature of this and the server-side interplay, bringing another 'machine instance' (including a VM
instance) into the fray on the same amazons account login credentials is pretty much a sure way to throw a spanner in
works ..if for no other reason than a real windows box (or VM installation) negotiates all of this correctly, and the
same kindle4pc client is failing to do this correctly in wine...now....here's the gotcha ; whether or not a book is
'free' or not, is flagged from the server-side. You can see this expressed in ebook titles that are "free for a limited
time" as opposed to those "free" at all times. Non-free books, ie; purchases, are bound to be flagged differently from
the server-side as well...ie; free(for a limited time)=account check only, no machine number check | purchased=only to
this account and to this registered machine number....something along these lines. It explains the variance in behavior
wrt free titles pretty closely....

I would have to buy a book to explore that angle further -- that's probably not the point right now anyhow ; the kindle4pc
client software has to be able to register itself correctly at startup first, before any of that is going to work correctly
anyway....which is why I say, getting this registering business happening correctly first, is going to be mandatory 8-)

Cheers!

I'm following your logic (and I agree with it).....which should scare the heck out of you :).

Now, the question I have is why is it failing. ie, It looks like it does register with Amazon at least initially as I can see a new device on Amazon's page.

I believe that initial pairing is actually working and allowing the books to be pulled, but when you open it, it fails some check. Now since you should be able to read books locally, wouldn't it be failing a local check of some sort?

This would confirm the theory on free all of the time and free some of the time as free all the time would have some flag that says it doesn't need to run whatever local check for authorization that it is doing.

It sounds to me that it is doing 2 separate checks and they're different? Dang it...I'm now starting to argue with myself :).

How did you get this to work? I have tried installing into an existing win 98 and new win 98 bottle, using CrossOver 8.0.1 and kindle installer of 17 Dec 2009. The installer runs then produces a messages saying Kindle failed to start, & after that when I run it from the CrossOver programs menu it appears in the Dock for a second then quits. i.e. it fails completely.

... ok I figured out I had to load IE first. Now it launches & I get the same delete your book from your device and download it again message. Which doesn't fix it. :(

Derick Fay wrote:

How did you get this to work? I have tried installing into an
existing win 98 and new win 98 bottle, using CrossOver 8.0.1 and
kindle installer of 17 Dec 2009. The installer runs then produces a
messages saying Kindle failed to start, & after that when I run it
from the CrossOver programs menu it appears in the Dock for a second
then quits. i.e. it fails completely.

Hi,

As there's no external versioning info, I don't know for   

sure which version you have (all I can go by is filesize)...
..did you install the fonts package?

Cheers!

After loading it, you can check the menu for About Kindle or something like that for the version but it'll try to update immediately.

Even if it doesn't, I don't think we've gotten it to working correctly yet.

yep - in the Kindle about menu it's v. 1.0.1 Beta 1 (25709) .
fonts all look fine.
anyway I am giving up - I can read the book I need well enough on my iPhone and will wait for the mac native version - thanks for the attn though

Me, too.