CrossOver Support - Community Forums

I hate to complain, but I am wondering why I spent the money to purchase a copy of Crossover. I watched the crossover product for many years and finally payed for a license and am disappointed. I have tried three different ways to get help getting Uplay to work in crossover 14.1.x. I tried a post in the forums, which was no help. I also tried the irc channel. Then submitted a support ticket. I hoped that the support would be more helpful. I mean I don't expect everything to get fixed right away, or that I would not have to do part of the work. So far the suggestions I have gotten were minimal and useless. So far I get better support from using Playonlinux. Mainly due to the ability of being able to use multiple version of wine. I must admit the software that does work actually performs better in Crossover. I am just wondering why one would pay for support that does nothing to help when asked for. I feel it may have been better to just donate money to winehq and use playonlinux. I am trying to spend my money on products that help linux gain better support. This is my way of voting with my dollars, which is the only thing companies understand. I have read multiple posts about why crossover does not allow multiple versions of wine to be used. This is poor thinking since the current status of each application may change from one version of wine to the next. I guess I will just hope that CX 15 will bring some enhancements that will help a program with so much potential shine. I feel that a product that cost this much should at least rival the free alternatives.

I am having a similar experience. I happily paid because I want to support the Linux community. Unfortunately, it has been of very little use to me thus far. I think that I have pretty low expectations too: I would be happy if I could just run a recent version of Internet Explorer on Linux using CrossOver.

Ok, this is really starting to grind my gears. Were you folks ever promised that Uplay or any version recent of IE would actually work? I ask because I don't recall any such promises were ever made by Codeweavers.

Nobody promised anything. That is why we are not asking for our money back.

What we are doing is providing feedback on your product as paying customers. Why does that upset you?

I do believe your forums as for this kind of feedback. I have read hundreds of posts. There have been many request/suggestions for new features. So far all of them have been brushed off. The need for 64bit support, multiple versions of wine, etc. These are requests from paying customers. I am not going to ask for my money back, but if at the end of my support period if things have not improved I may spend my money elsewhere. I am not trying to be rude just pointing out that I get better support from some other open source projects. When I have to pay for a product I expect it to work better than the free alternatives. The reason I am not using windows is because Micro$oft has a tendency to ignore their customers and charge a premium for a sub par product. This is why I am wanting to spend my money with business such as Codeweavers. Yes, I agree that no one said the previously mention applications would work, but I would expect some real effort to help me with the issues. Especially since I am willing to do as much of the work as I possible can. When I am told that wine is missing the needed files/functions in the first reply from support, that means they are saying we are only going to help if it is a support application. Well, I can go right on over to Playonlinux and ask the same question and get more help for nothing. Except Uplay works with Playonlinux with no major issues so far. So far the only application that I use crossover for is World of Warcraft. The main reason is I get double the fps. If after a week or so of back and forth with support they said that I would need to wait until the next release, I could understand that. But, after 24hrs I am told that sorry we took your money and do not want to really help because it would be difficult and time consuming then I take that as a hint to spend my money elsewhere.

I do believe your forums as for this kind of feedback.

I don't work for Codeweavers and I don't represent them in any capacity.

If you bought a product that you find as not fit for purpose, ask for a refund or just don't renew the subscription. If PoL works better for you, then use it. I don't see any harm in that.

This being said, it's entirely possible that Uplay will work in CX15 if you say that it currently works in PoL with a vanilla wine build. Though I can't confirm that since the beta cycle for version 15 hasn't started yet.

Can you point to the posts where Codeweavers staff brush off suggestions made by customers?

https://www.codeweavers.com/support/forums/general/?t=26;mhl=175957;msg=170935#msg175957
https://www.codeweavers.com/support/wiki/64bit_Support

Here is two examples of what I mean. These are important features that give Playonlinux the edge it has over Crossover. Would you pay for a windows license if every time they offered a new version of windows it broke application that worked previously and no one wanted to help fix the issue. Oh wait, that does happen every time they release a new version of windows. 64bit CPU's have not been sold for quite some time. 64bit is the new world and unfortunately it will only become more important. Or we could wait until it absolutely necessary and then try to get the code built in a hurry. Codeweaver's is always nice and offers technical reasons why these thing can't or shouldn't be done. Nonetheless they are still paying customers asking for features that are already offered elsewhere. I am just trying to let Codeweavers know what they need to do to keep getting my money, and in the world of business money is important. I made a choice to buy the software and I will stand by that choice. I feel that it is my responsibility to provide feedback on my experience with crossover. Either to help better the product/service or to let others know what their real expectations should be.

Neither Stefan's reply nor the article about challenges implied by 64bit support in Wine brush anybody off. But it might be just that I'm Romanian and don't have proper comprehension of the English language. Or heck, maybe we brush people off in a different way over here rather than explaining stuff.

For example, one definition for "brushing someone off" is like this: "to refuse to listen to someone, or to accept that something might be true or important". I don't see this in any of the examples you pointed to. But like I said. Maybe it's just me not understanding words...

The only thing that matters here is that I payed for a product and it does not perform to my expectations. The support so far does not seem to be worth my time or money. I guess I will wait and see, but I think I will continue to use other software that does a better job at fulfilling my needs. I will probably just uninstall Crossover and wait to see what changes over the next year while my subscription is active.

The 64 bit issue is a problem in my opinion. It is entirely possible under Linux, but because 64bit Crossover Mac is a nightmare, we Linux users don't have it yet. It sucks, and I hate the idea that Macs are the cause of a delay for a Linux feature. I understand that Mac users are the majority of revenue, but I don't like to have less because they can't have it too. I do grasp the politics of it, I still don't have to like it.

As for multiple versions of Wine, I wouldn't want to do that and have to do support. POL can choose to do that, as the community is solely responsible for "support", which is in no case a contractual obligation. In the case of Crossover, it just doesn't make any sense, as they have a contractual obligation to offer support, on a somewhat limited staff. The complication implied by multiple Wine versions would be a big problem. In this particular case, I think the complaint originates from a strictly technical point of view, and doesn't take into account the business aspect of it, which a comparison with POL is a clear indication.

That being said, I'm not saying that the complaints aren't valid in one way or another. What I'm saying is that there are reasons for the decisions, and I don't see a brush off anywhere. You (and myself) might not agree with some of the reasoning, it doesn't make it bad.

By the way, my use of Crossover is for what I need stable, what I need to work no matter what. That used to be way more important to me when I was still using MSOffice. Crossover offered a high reliability way to run MSOffice, unlike Wine, which could be flaky. With that in mind, it is entirely possible Crossover isn't for you.

I don't take issue with people wishing for features. It's just that implying that somehow they were promised something which in the end wasn't delivered tends to rub me off in the wrong way.

As for the 64bit support situation, I fully support implementing it. Here's my post on that: https://www.codeweavers.com/support/forums/general/?t=26;msg=157848#c21

Wow lively bunch today. I to have apps I'd like to have working or apps that worked with earlier versions of crossover that don't now. I have paid for my subscription now for over ten years and feel it is my way of supporting Wine. As for the Coadweavers team they are a few very well intended soles who are trying to recreate what took Microsoft thirty Years and hundreds of thousands of people to do in the first place. Many things have improved over the years and I'm sure they will continue to make improvements I also think at some point they will include 64bit support or the product will just die.

My biggest complaint is the support. From what I have seen there is a very small list of officially supported applications, none of which I use. If the support is going to tell me sorry that application is not supported then what is the point of paying for the product. I know there are far more application not supported than are supported by wine. I can donate money to wine directly instead of wasting my time on another product that does not offer any advantage over using vanilla wine from what I have seen. If they break support for an application that I use what is the point of having product. I would hate get used to the ability to use an application, then have that app stop working and be told sorry wait and see. Like I said ealier, I will influence the market by spending my dollars in places that support my needs.

The Transgaming (cedega) approach was similar to PoL. Each release was in the form of an "engine" or a complete version of cedega which was selectable per-game. So if there was a regression in either functionality or performance between engine releases you could choose to use an older engine.

This model breaks down with services like Steam because it would require backporting fixes to Steam itself into older releases which is unlikely, so that your old game may eventually stop working anyway.

Me too, Daniel. I purchased the CrossOver upgrade hoping they would be willing to fix the help menu display problem for AutoCAD 2000/Mechanical Desktop R4 and they have no interest to do so. Also, they have no interest to incorporate USB support in CrossOver. So I just through away money for nothing?

Let me chime in. I'm sorry, this is going to get long.

tldr; we humbly appreciate all of the support from our community and customers.

USB support is difficult and it IS being worked on. It's a matter of how the device is advertised to the operating system and how much we can do about it. This work is going into Wine as HID implementation. This should unify the various different ways devices are discovered and make the functionality become nearly 'seamless' assuming the device shows it is present in a sane way. Our developers are taking the lead on this work though many more from the Wine community are contributing.

AutoCAD applications are traditionally a touch and go deal. We have seen more and more begin to work with CrossOver (and Wine) recently and believe that as Wine matures, more applications will work. AutoCAD has not yet been on our radar as something to target because of the amount of work it would take to get it fully functional. However, as Wine improves overall, CAD applications work more and the amount of work it would take to polish this series decreases. Essentially, it gets closer and closer to being reachable to where we could assign a development team to it. It's not there yet, don't read too far into the tea leaves; but it's a series we discuss often.

The 64 bit article is a work in progress. It's not meant to brush off the need for 64 bit support, it's meant to be a reference point for all the people who read and watch our forums regularly. That way when someone comes forward and asks why we don't have 64 bit support (yet), it's laid out directly from us. I haven't gotten it completed; I honestly hope the work to implement 64 bit support matures enough to include it in CrossOver so that we can take that article down. We know that 64 bit support for applications is more than a little necessary and we talk about it weekly if not daily (this week CrossOver 15 and Wine 1.8 are on our minds). Know that it's coming but that we are not quite there. It means overcoming a lot of challenges for us. I'll try to circle back to that article and lay out what we see as the challenges on the Linux side of life and why we haven't just made 64 bit support appear.

The idea of Supported Applications is a difficult topic. The truth is we have a core set of applications that we test on a bi-weekly basis (every time a new version of Wine is released). We use these applications to gauge the stability of Wine and lead our developers in what might need attention. We add and remove applications from this list for various reasons. Sometimes applications stay on the list even if they have a native version because they are so useful to test (like Portal or Team Fortress 2). Traditionally, this has been what we call "Support Applications".

Beyond that, we have an amazing team of people who volunteer their time and frankly get to our forums to answer questions for us before our staff can get there. People like Silviu, JP, Gary, and many more, too many to mention over the years. I live for these people and the help they give (that's why I started the page explaining why 64 bit support is difficult for us to simply turn on). They watch their favorite applications and the general functionality of CrossOver at all hours of the day and night. They create things like CrossTies that make applications easy to run and their advice is certainly more informed than ours when it comes to their favorite applications. These applications were not getting the "Supported" go ahead from us but were running at a gold status with community support that meant no additional effort from our staff (when something just runs, they definitely make us look good; when something needs a workaround, they write it, etc). We didn't want to downplay that designation anymore. We wanted to say their word is as good as ours for their favorite applications.

We removed the "Supported Application" designation from our website when we revamped it. An application works now based on our star system and we think it's more informative. I'm getting off topic... please read about our star rating system here.

Getting "better support from PlayOnLinux..." this is a hard piece to explain and realize. The truth is, the PlayOnLinux community is great, too. They do well in finding ways to run applications with Wine and make it easy for the end user. I don't want to downplay that or take away from that. PlayOnLinux benefits from the same work as CrossOver and all of the other third party applications that are based on Wine. The biggest distinction is, CodeWeavers is the corporate sponsor of Wine. We employ a large group of the Wine developers, including Alexandre Julliard. A breakdown of who is who for the Wine Project with CodeWeavers. When someone purchases CrossOver, they are helping fund additional work on Wine and helping do things like continue our support of the WineHQ website (it's on the front page of WineHQ, we host the site. Our system administrator does the skeletal work for WineHQ and then many others refine it).

As far as programs that don't run in CrossOver and including additional versions of Wine... as already alluded to, this is difficult for our Support and Testing teams (not to mention our developers). The reason is the nature of Linux, especially. There are so many different distributions and combinations therein. I could (for example) be running Ubuntu 64bit with Unity stripped out so I'm running XFCE and I'm running Nvidia drivers but I decided not to run the most current ones that the Software Center suggests, I'm running an older version that is stable for me. Or maybe I role with Arch Linux to keep everything on the edge. Or maybe I like Fedora 23, the beta preview... but I chose KDE instead of Gnome. That is a lot of moving parts. To add in all the combinations of Wine (each bi-weekly version, staging, stable, etc) is madness. Sheer madness. It's not that it can't be done, we've discussed making it so people could turn it on for individual bottles or in a specific build of CrossOver... but then how would we support it? How would we test it? How would we ensure that CrossOver works in all the combinations or at least most?

Which comes to the next piece. We are a small team. We have about thirty employees, half of them are Wine developers. Then we have a Support Team of two, a testing team of two, and around four developers who work directly on our product (for things like library dependencies, installation of CrossOver, working with OS X versions, adding 64bit support, etc). Each new feature takes time, development, testing. We have to choose which is most important to work on and do that. Then the next feature, then the next feature. CrossOver 15 has a complete overhaul of how installation works, a complete overhaul of a rating system, an overhaul of the Linux GUI, polish on how libraries work, and so much more. Basically, they have been busy, really busy. It isn't that we don't want to add more to CrossOver, it's a question of resources... and to have more... people have to buy CrossOver. A vicious cycle.

I want to say that yes, we read these threads and we take these suggestions seriously. I want you to know where your money is going and know that no one is getting rich off of people paying for Wine. I want you to know that we humbly appreciate the feedback and support of CodeWeavers and the Wine Community at large.

Thank you.

Daniel Allred wrote:

I hate to complain, but I am wondering why I spent the money to
purchase a copy of Crossover. I watched the crossover product for
many years and finally payed for a license and am disappointed. I
have tried three different ways to get help getting Uplay to work in
crossover 14.1.x. I tried a post in the forums, which was no help. I
also tried the irc channel. Then submitted a support ticket. I hoped
that the support would be more helpful. I mean I don't expect
everything to get fixed right away, or that I would not have to do
part of the work. So far the suggestions I have gotten were minimal
and useless. So far I get better support from using Playonlinux.
Mainly due to the ability of being able to use multiple version of
wine. I must admit the software that does work actually performs
better in Crossover. I am just wondering why one would pay for
support that does nothing to help when asked for. I feel it may have
been better to just donate money to winehq and use playonlinux. I am
trying to spend my money on products that help linux gain better
support. This is my way of voting with my dollars, which is the only
thing companies understand. I have read multiple posts about why
crossover does not allow multiple versions of wine to be used. This
is poor thinking since the current status of each application may
change from one version of wine to the next. I guess I will just
hope that CX 15 will bring some enhancements that will help a
program with so much potential shine. I feel that a product that
cost this much should at least rival the free alternatives.

And finally, just to circle back to UPlay...

It works better in the upcoming version of CrossOver, version 15. It has very limited functionality and is unstable in CrossOver 14. I have updated the CrossTies (our method for installing UPlay) to help make installation easier.