Anvil Studio Forum

Using CrossOver 15.1 Mac on El Capitan, I installed Microsoft NET 4.0 in a bottle and then installed Anvil Studio 2016.02.04 without a problem. As far as I can tell, Anvil Studio is functional. However, the interface problems are really bad, with certain elements in the UI (especially checkboxes and such) appearing as just a mess of characters written on top of other characters, which prevents any use or even understanding of what to do. The menus at the top of Anvil Studio are perfectly usable, though.

OK, I solved the problem and Anvil Studio is now fully functional on Crossover Mac 15.1! To fix the problem, I found a good version of gdiplus.dll from a Wine installation I have on Linux (the good version is 1.6 MB in size; the nonworking version that was installed by CrossOver was only a 2 kB stub). After putting the good gdiplus.dll in c:\window\system 32, I went into the Wine configuration tool and made an exception for gdiplus.dll, making it native. Now the UI looks totally normal.

One small problem I had that I worked around is that the Anvil Studio window has unnecessary horizontal and vertical scrollbars in CrossOver. The one problem that this causes is when I got and installed the multitrack option, which has its own shorter vertical scrollbar on the right that is covered by the window's unnecessary vertical scrollbar. To get around this, I used regedit (open this by running the command "regedit" in Crossover for the bottle with Anvil Studio) to change the values for "ScrollHeight" and "ScrollWidth" from -240 to -120, making the scroll bars narrower. This exposes the useful vertical scroll bar that I needed for AV's multitrack feature.

I'm in the process of trying your workaround for Anvil Studio.
Being something of a newbie it took me a while to figure out the business with the gdiplus.dll, but I got that done okay.

I had problems trying to find a .NET framework version that didn't require me to have an internet connection during the install, because although I do have one, it doesn't seem to be available or evident to the programs being installed within Crossover.
I couldn't locate a version 4 at any rate, so tried version 4.6.1. downloaded from an independent web site.

This seemed to install into a Windows 7 bottle just fine.

I downloaded the latest version of Anvil Studio 2016.06.01 since my old versions went back to 2006. I set this up to go into another Windows 7 bottle.

It started well enough and the .NET installer popped up during the course of the Anvil install...aaand over an hour later the progress bar on the .NET installer still keeps grinding along, and when complete, begins again from the start. It has repeated the 'progress' a good eight or so times now and I can't get it to cancel either.

Have I made some kind of daft blunder along the way?

Well, here's where I am today with this.

I tossed out my other attempts and started again but using my 2012 Anvil version and installed it into an XP bottle. I then installed a .NET framework into that same XP bottle, stopping it after the completion of .NET4 (letting it run into the installation of 4.5 seemed to cause the whole thing to fall into a loop from which it never escapes).

Since I had already placed my gdiplus.dll into the Windows System 32 folder as explained by the previous poster here, I had only to enter the Wine Configuration utility for my fresh Anvil 2012 bottle and 'Add' gdiplus.dll, then 'Edit' this to run 'Native' (instead of 'Native,Built In').

The end result is that I now have a functioning version of the basic Anvil Studio (Yayyy, Yippee!).

Flushed with both relief and victory, I attempted to install my previously purchased plugin packs, Combo Pack 1 and the Print Sheet Accessory.....

UNFORTUNATELY...trying to install these addon packs so far has proved difficult...impossible even for now.

Because they are .exe files I must run them like any other installer, but even when I try to install them into the same XP bottle that houses my main Anvil program, they stop as soon as they start, with an error message that states "Anvil must first be installed before this pack can be added".
I have tried various combinations of steps to install these packs but so far, no luck.

Has anyone had any luck with this additional step?

Hi Ross -- In my own installation, I've added an Anvil Studio addon pack (the "Multi-View") without any problems. I'm wondering if your problems came from adding .NET 4 externally rather than through the CrossOver app.

I created my Anvil Studio installation differently from the way you did. First, I created a new Windows 7 bottle. Next, I installed the "Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0" straight from the Codeweavers install utility (In the CrossOver bottle manager GUI, click on "Install Windows application", then to "Non-Applications", and from there you can install "Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0"). Third, I installed Anvil Studio as I described in my previous posts. I then bought the addon pack and was able to add it with no problem.

Thanks for giving me a little more insight into your process John.

I'll give your method a whirl and see if it gives me a successful result. 😊

Hi John,
I followed your method as closely as possible, but had the same result as before. "Anvil Studio must be installed on this computer first" (which of course it is, within the bottle I have just created along with the dotnet4 download obtained through the CrossOver utility.)

I suspect in my case it may be because I have owned the combo pack and printsheet utility for a long time and did not buy it through the running app. but rather I am trying to run the installlers I downloaded when I had my Windows machine way back.
I will try to see if I can install it through the running Anvil app but I have no intention of paying for them a second time, so here's hoping I can just make a 'restore' of my previous purchase.

Cheers
Ross