e-tax 2010 (Australia) Forum

Hi,

Although I've no use for/interest in this software app as such, seeing another
user playing with it (from UQ which is in my own state 8) was enough for me to
spool up a c4p installer in it's regard.

The c4p recipe is rudimentary at best, and I am unsure whether I've caught all the
dependencies it's looking for. I have no legitimate business to do with the ATO as
such, so it's difficult for me to properly test/judge the program's behavior overall.
If anyone wishes to try the c4p recipe and report back on what's working and what's
not, this will surely help.

The c4p recipe itself is not online (and you'd need C4P privs to access it here),
so I've hoisted it onto rapidshare ...you can grab it from the following URL;

http://rapidshare.com/files/405016525/7692.c4p

Notes:

the inbuilt help function (the more info button at bottom left of UI) will crash wine
(but not the program itself)...I'm still looking into the cause of this glitche...

debuglog revealed to me that parts of this app are calling for ieframe.exe (part of
IE7) and as such IE7 is installed as a predependency.

thanks to Natasha B's observations, msxml-4.0 is also installed as a predependency.

if you've already downloaded the etax2010 installer .msi file, you can point the c4p
recipe to use that file. This avoids the inordinately long download time when grabbing
the file from the ATO through their 56k dial-up modem connection 8)

Any report/comments welcomed from those using this app in a 'real, live' exchange with
the ATO, wrt what is or isn't working...

Cheers!

Thanks!

The inbuilt help function does not crash my wine... perhaps related to the fact I installed it into my Office 2007 bottle? But it doesn't bring up any help at all, all blank.

Not a problem!

Thanks for the info -- my guess is Office installs a (otherwise missing) .dll file
that the etaxhelp.exe needs to avoid hitting a brick wall. Seeing as you're not
getting that crash (but at the same time not getting any help text), I'm suspecting
the culprit relates to these lines from debuglog...;

 warn:ntdll:NtQueryAttributesFile L"\\??\\C:\\Program Files\\etax2010\\etaxHelp.ENA" not found (c0000034)                                                                          
 warn:ntdll:FILE_CreateFile L"\\??\\C:\\Program Files\\etax2010\\etaxHelp.ENA" not found (c0000034)
 warn:ntdll:NtQueryAttributesFile L"\\??\\C:\\Program Files\\etax2010\\etaxHelp.EN" not found (c0000034)

The file it's looking for ( etaxHelp.EN[A] ) certainly doesn't exist inside the install
directory...why, is another matter, but obviously this would account for what you're seeing.
(extaxhelp.exe actually throws to ieframe.exe and would probably display an empty ieframe
window in such circumstance)...

I'll keep digging... 8)

Cheers!

Don,

I've been using e-Tax ever since it became available as a online application from the ATO.
I found it a convenient way of doing what is an Annual Chore.

it is not officially supported outside of the Micro$oft environment.

• although it has been officially tested on 'Parallels' for the Mac & it worked.

it would be nice to see a version of this Annual Product, that did work under 'nix.

The trick is going to be, working out just how much of the Micro$oft environment.
that it needs to run, properly.

Hi,

On the ATO site they talk about doing just that -- porting it to other platforms.
Knowing the ATO, that may well happen before 2025 ;) If it worked in parallels
no doubt it works just dandy in a virtual machine (vmware or such)...

@Natasha -- seems I was a little misled about the inbuilt help function...it's not
a missing help file at all. I sparked it up in a VM to see what happens there, and
the help function is actually throwing to a browser component (ieframe again) to
load the HTML documentation contained within the etax2010 install directory. You could
load that documentation with your system web-browser as a work around.

Cheers!

I tried your c4 installer, in a new XP bottle.

it downloaded the font(s), the xml, & then ie7 - which failed to install ok.

so, it didn't get to the local e-Tax.msi file, or run/install that.

The IE7 install can fluff out for various reasons - sometimes it's because
folks forget to untick the 'download malicious software updates' thingy in
the IE7 install UI -- other times it fails even with that ticked. Usually
immediately retrying the operation works however.

edit: hangon...did you say new IE7 bottle?....the C4P automatically creates
the bottle for you...ie; don't use a c4p on a pre-existing bottle (if that's
what you did)

I did use the c4 created XP bottle.

would it pay to pre-install anything, or just let the c4 installer 'do it's thing' ?.

& it is possible to 'point' the c4 to a local copy of ie7 as well as the ato.MSI ??.

I just retried the c4p 3 times....worked every time.

Perhaps you've got a dirty download of IE - delete it. This will be in
you ~/.cxoffice/installers directory.

As I say in my first post here, you can point the c4p at the local installer
you've already downloaded (click on the 'Will download install fron...blabla'
thingy and then you can select the local installer file).

You really need get around the installing IE7 part -- just try to install
IE7 from the cxsetup (manage bottles) UI (forget about etax just for a moment)
and just make sure that is working for you. If IE7 still refuses to install,
there is something else going awry...

I wouldn't advise pointing the c4p at the IE7 .msi - it should just work.

Cheers!

Don,

got it to work - BUT - what I did, was to let it pull everything from the 'net.
install into its XP bottle, etc etc.

still a little flaky, though, sometimes the e-Tax will load, then just 'disappear',
other times, it loads just fine, & is quite usable, - it now recognizes that there is no "user data"
& offers to start a new user datafile - just like it should !.

Very close to usable, I'd say.

BTW - I had to use the new CX 9.10 <pro> to get it to run - NoGo with v9.0. <std>.
should also try it with CX 9.10 <std> I guess.

Pierre,

Yeah, it should 'just work' automagically by letting it grab what it
needs 'live' off the 'net.....

The other behavior you describe sounds a little anomalous (compared to results here),
that said, I've only checked this with CXO-9.0.1 .... I must check with the 9.1 beta
a little later....probably on the morrow....

Btw, what platform/OS spec are you using?

Cheers!

It's running on my "test PC" which is a multi-boot 'nix box.

the used partition has Mint 9 on it & CX 9.10 <pro>,
it won't work on my standard box, which has UE2.3 & CX 9.0 <std>.

I don't have CX installed on other partitions, in either box.

I'm currently ramping up another "test PC" with higher specs ....

mainstream 'nix used somewhat low 'spec' - but not any more.