CrossOver Support - Community Forums

I have a VMWare VM on my Intel MacBook Pro that I maintain for the sole purpose of running exactly one unlisted program for which I don't have the the installer. I'm intrigued by CrossOver and was wondering if it's possible to create a Windows 10 "bottle" and try to figure out how to transplant all the constituent program files into it. Is this possible and if so is there any documentation to help?

So I'm completely new to CrossOver and I'm guessing the answer to my original question is likely going to be "no" (although it would be great to have that confirmed). The program in question has a license file buried somewhere that is locked to the existing hardware (i.e. the VM) into which it was originally installed and it's likely that CrossOver can't assume/adopt the identical machine ID (or whatever it's called). This is likely too big a can of worms, yes/no?

Hi there,

I have heard of folks having success transferring Windows programs to CrossOver, but it's certainly not straightforward since you need to figure out where all of the files for your program are on your Windows machine, and then copy them to the corresponding directories in your CrossOver bottle.

In the particular case of your license file, you're correct that CrossOver won't be able to assume the ID of the VM.

Best,
Meredith

Thanks - that clarifies things for me. The only remaining thought I have is that I do know the HOST ID of the existing VM - why is it impossible to subsequently define (or transplant) that HOST ID for CrossOver?

MickM wrote:

Thanks - that clarifies things for me. The only remaining thought I have is that I do know the HOST ID of the existing VM - why is it impossible to subsequently define (or transplant) that HOST ID for CrossOver?

Hi there - CrossOver isn't a VM, and doesn't have anything like a Host ID.

Best,
Meredith

Thanks Meredith. Sorry, this is like peeling an onion. I know of many programs that have license keys that are constrained to one or two specific computers and their license keys subsequently have the HOST ID all encrypted into it. I would have thought accessing the HOST ID was some sort of OS call (I genuinely don't know, just hypothesizing) that could be emulated by CrossOver. Your response implies that programs with such license keys are not capable of being run or compatible with CrossOver - is that so?

MickM wrote:

Thanks Meredith. Sorry, this is like peeling an onion. I know of many programs that have license keys that are constrained to one or two specific computers and their license keys subsequently have the HOST ID all encrypted into it. I would have thought accessing the HOST ID was some sort of OS call (I genuinely don't know, just hypothesizing) that could be emulated by CrossOver. Your response implies that programs with such license keys are not capable of being run or compatible with CrossOver - is that so?

To my knowledge, there is no one standard way to query the "id" of a machine on Windows. A PC might be a collection of parts that can all be swapped out independently, so it can get to be a Ship of Theseus problem. You can query things like the network card's MAC address, or the motherboard's serial number. None of those are really guaranteed to be unique, though, and any one of them could be replaced while, in the practical sense, still using the same machine.

Generally what CrossOver does is try to map those requests for information to the host OS, as best it can. If it can't access the information, it may generate something or use a hard-coded value.

So, it's possible that your program would run, if you are licensed to use it on your host machine, and if the APIs it uses to query hardware information are implemented correctly in CrossOver. But it also sounds like transferring the install you have inside your VM requires circumventing DRM, which we can't help you with, so I think we need to end that line of discussion here.