CrossOver Support - Community Forums

My qualms and maybe others who are supporting Crossover with premium fees:-

• It has been 3 continuous major releases from (20-22) which has failed to run all the major apps without hitches(Word, Powerpoint, Excel) even the old office from 2016 or office 365
• Whats the point in premium payment if everything is to be fixed through Wine or dependence on Wine stuff.
• Last version 21 saw only two minor version upgrades throughout whole year, maybe justifiable for some supporters but bundled apps crash here and there and you try to avoid clicking the problematic flow in the app without crossover actually fixing it.
• autofix script is rather dangerous where you have no option in it to revert the packages responsible for more app crashes(if it happens).
• Whats the point if notifications and Outlook does not work, rather anyone can install Office on VM and use reliably. 
• What about enterprise integration, can we use office 365 on crossover reliably, i cannot vouch and none other can so whats the point in having crossover.
•  Most used software which is Office cannot run reliably, well i cannot comment how other apps would be working its like winning gold if you are able to run an app smoothly without an hitch (if wine is already there for similar experience, i heard some people running Photoshop on Wine ;) ).
• I found Foxit Pdf studio working fine in crossover but not listed anywhere in the packages, how often do crossover update this list(no one knows)??

While you do have some valid points, and I wish I could get it to work reliably as well, saying "What's the point of paying for Crossover cause XXX app doesn't work" is not a very motivating statement. Keep in mind this is a fairly small team trying to work with thousands of apps....not just Office. Also keep in mind some App developers will make things more difficult for some apps to work outside of what they intended it to work on. Microsoft is one of these despite their seemingly recent adoption of Linux. They still haven't made their apps work natively in Linux.

Also, if you are part of a company and trying to get Office 365 working, make sure they aren't making it hard as well. I know my company has set policies that only domain joined machines can utilize Office 365. I know this because I am on that team and part of that policy writing.

There are many factors to consider before accusing the Code Weavers team of "not caring". There are many volunteers in the community that helps troubleshoot and get things working as well. Maybe consider being one of them.

Hi
This is an answer ro Brad's comment : this is a fairly small team trying to work with thousands of apps
Nice to know BUT when you buy CrossOver, this statement DOES NOT appear clearly.
In my case, I tried first and bought CO after, hoping someone will deal with Excel isues, which apparently in not the case.

I have had a very reliable install for Excel 2016. Generally, the only program I cannot get to function reliably is Outlook 2016 so I use Evolution Mail.

But I use Word 2016 and maybe get a crash once in a blue moon...Excel 2016 which has not crashed, Access 2016 starts up fine however I do not use the program, PowerPoint 2016 works as advertised and Publisher 2016 appears to work fine though again, I do not use it that much.

I primarily use Word / Excel 2016 and they certainly are reliable enough for daily use (for me at least).

I used the Standard Office 2016 Tie from the Installer ISO loaded onto my system SSD. Added a couple of tweaks which appeared to really help.
MS NET Framework up to 4.8; MS Windows Desktop Runtime 5,6 & 7; MSXML 6.0; MS VC Redist x86

FYI

Hi craig
I use 365 and surely it is not as stable as you describe with 2016.
2016 is quite limited compared with 365. No UNIQUE, some text functions are not in,...
I will try 2016. Could you please let me know what you installed besides 2016 itself?
Thank you
Jean

Greetings,

After installing Crossover I did the following 1st:
sudo apt-get install libglu1-mesa:i386 libxrandr2:i386 libnss-mdns:i386
sudo apt install mesa-vulkan-drivers mesa-vulkan-drivers:i386 libvulkan1 libvulkan1:i386 vulkan-utils

Then check for any missing files/plugins:

1. sudo /opt/cxoffice/bin/cxfix --auto
2. sudo /opt/cxoffice/bin/cxdiag

If missing files/plugins try:
sudo apt install gstreamer1.0-libav:i386 \gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly:i386 gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad:i386
sudo /opt/cxoffice/bin/cxfix missinglibncurses missinglibncurses.amd64

I used the Standard Office 2016 Tie installer (APR 2020 version) which creates a Windows 7 bottle but added the following:
DirectX Modern Games; MS Visual C++ 2008(SP1), 2012 & 2015; OpenAL; MS .NET 4, 4.5, 4.5.2, 4.6.2, 4.7.2 & 4.8;
MS Visual Basic SP6;
MS Visual Basic Power Pack;
XNA Framework 4.0;
Crossover HTML Rendering (IE8);,
Windows Imaging Componant,
MS Visual J# 2.0.

I then installed:
WindowsDesktopRuntime v5, v6 & v7 x86;
Visual C++ 2015-2019;

If “Restart Now” pops up, select it.

Rebooted bottle and everything (as per previous statements ran fine) except the issues with Outlook.

WindowsDesktopRuntime version 5.0.17 here:
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/thank-you/runtime-desktop-5.0.17-windows-x86-installer

Hope this helps.

Hi
Very comprehensive explanation on how to install 2016
Thank you a lot
Jean

Hi Craig,

Thanks for the detailed help.

I've followed most of the above steps, however, when you mention:-

I used the Standard Office 2016 Tie installer (APR 2020 version) which creates a Windows 7 bottle but added the following:
DirectX Modern Games; MS Visual C++ 2008(SP1), 2012 & 2015; OpenAL; MS .NET 4, 4.5, 4.5.2, 4.6.2, 4.7.2 & 4.8;
MS Visual Basic SP6;
MS Visual Basic Power Pack;
XNA Framework 4.0;
Crossover HTML Rendering (IE8);,
Windows Imaging Componant,
MS Visual J# 2.0.

Do you have to download each component separately, then install it into the windows 7 bottle? For example, download 'DirectX Modern Games' then install it, then 'MS Visual C++ 2008(SP1), 2012 & 2015', install it...........etc....etc?

Hi,

I believe he means to choose "Install" on top left of Crossover window, then "Edit" the destination bottle to the one where you have installed Office and use the same installation procedure for every extra software he mentioned.

Good luck!

Do you have to download each component separately, then install it into the windows 7 bottle? For example, download 'DirectX Modern Games' then install it, then 'MS Visual C++ 2008(SP1), 2012 & 2015', install it...........etc....etc?

Apologies for the delay in responding.

Hope the following clarifies my recipe:

I used the Standard Office 2016 Tie installer (APR 2020 version) which creates a Windows 7 bottle but added the following:

In adding the following I did it via "Advanced Options" and added them all together (hold shift key down while selecting each item).

DirectX Modern Games; MS Visual C++ 2008(SP1), 2012 & 2015; OpenAL; MS .NET 4, 4.5, 4.5.2, 4.6.2, 4.7.2 & 4.8;
MS Visual Basic SP6;
MS Visual Basic Power Pack;
XNA Framework 4.0;
Crossover HTML Rendering (IE8);,
Windows Imaging Componant,
MS Visual J# 2.0.

I did not startup/initiate any Office application until after manually installing the following via the run command option in the bottle.

I then installed:
WindowsDesktopRuntime v5, v6 & v7 x86;
Visual C++ 2015-2019;

If “Restart Now” pops up, select it.

Rebooted bottle and everything (as per previous statements ran fine) except the issues with Outlook.

WindowsDesktopRuntime version 5.0.17 here:
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/en-us/download/dotnet/thank-you/runtime-desktop-5.0.17-windows-x86-installer

I hate to be the bad apple here, but why on earth bother with ms office, when there is a 100% compatible office suite (libreoffice) built right into Linux.

In my humble opinion, why bother??

Not a bad apple, just an option for a different variety of apple :-)

For those of us who may like the option to use the same layout from work at home in an office application.

For me Libreoffice is a very good option but it is not exactly MS Office and sometimes document formats change when going from Libreoffice to MS Office which is a pain.

So like most things, just a choice by the end user on what he or she would want to use.

Cheers

Steve McKinley wrote:

I hate to be the bad apple here, but why on earth bother with ms office, when there is a 100% compatible office suite (libreoffice) built right into Linux.

In my humble opinion, why bother??

Because it is not 100% yet. I use Libreoffice and it is compatible enough for me. But there are differences, still. For instance, VB macros don't work well as far as I know. Also there is no Access.... But Crossover never worked well with any version of Access, too. When I use Access, I need to use a Virtual Machine with Windows in it. Very few people need Access, anyway. It depends on the needs of each user.

Bad Apple comment
Appreciate that but have you ever tried something like Power Query under LibreOffice Calc??
If you have found a way, I'd like to know how you manage it.
thank

Jean

Hi Jean,

You could try this.
https://extensions.openoffice.org/en/project/decroise

taken from this thread:
https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=90061

I'm not saying that it will work, but like Crossover itself, we all never know until we give it a go.

I'm not a Microsoft user in general. I do have one laptop used for work where I can dual boot Linux ( for most of the work I do) but also Windoze 7. I also have a PC purely for gaming which runs Windoze as at this point in time there isn't much gaming support in the linux world. I don't run any other microsoft products having migrated everything I do to Linux and therefore either openoffice or libreoffice, the latter being more common these days.

Whilst only just having read your message, I actually had to ask good old google what the heck Power Query was. 😀

Perhaps like me, others might be interested to know whether this add-in was successful for you.

Take care
Steve

Steve McKinley wrote:
I also have a PC purely for gaming which runs Windoze as at this point in time there isn't much gaming support in the linux world. (....)
Steve

Please let me disagree with this. It was true a few years ago, but after the amazing job Valve and CodeWeavers did, mostly every game runs fine in Linux! Of course some games are hard to make work and some recently launched may have issues. Let's talk about Steam and it's Proton engine (which counted with a lot of help from Codeweavers) alone, no, better, let's talk about SteamDeck alone: more than 2900 VERIFIED games. If you're not so perfectionist and accepts the "playable" status, you have nearly 8000 games...

Luckily for me, all the games I currently play work fine in my Linux distro. I don't use my Windows partition for a couple of years!

And Proton on Steam Deck runs some games (Elden Ring, for instance) BETTER than Windows, no hiccups in the frame rate!

@Silvio. Wait, you play STFC too?? And were with Nero, or is that my screenshot??? OMG small world, whats your STFC game name? I've since left Nero and now with Rons, my username Steebs.

Steve McKinley wrote:

@Silvio. Wait, you play STFC too?? And were with Nero, or is that my screenshot??? OMG small world, whats your STFC game name? I've since left Nero and now with Rons, my username Steebs.

Yes, I play STFC. No, I'm TheSurak from FEBR - Frota Estelar Brasil.

Sorry for the off-topic, guys, but I didn't find how to send Steve a private message...

In a word Outlook email client with Outlook.com and Exchange server support. Yes it can sort of be done with Thunderbird and paid plugins but it's not the same.

I use Evolytion mail with ews plugin installed;
Works well with my outlook account, gmail account & a third account.

Layout similar to Outlook with all the same functionality calendar etc all built in.

Does everything I need.