wine users - Aug 2010 - Getting EPROM programmer software to work under Wine

I have some software for an EPROM programmer that's intended to run under
Windows. Of course, I would much rather it work on Wine...

The software in question is available here:
http://www.bkprecision.com/products/docs/software/845.zip

It installs fine, but when I run it, the software loads it's UI, and then
throws up a message box that says simply "EPrivilege". When you click
OK, the program closes.

The program, tested on my PC at work running XP, does work under Windows. Under
Windows, it displays a message that it can't communicate with the programmer
(since it's not attached), but all the menus work. Under Wine, it never even
displays that message - it seems to die as soon as it tries to communicate.

I have a feeling this has to have something to do with the access to the
parallel port. I've read the various documentation online, and I've
tried adding the requisite keys to the registry for direct parallel port I/O. I
have also used winecfg to set Wine to run as Windows 98 (since from what
I've read, only 9x programs can do direct parallel I/O without a driver).
I've set the permissions on /dev/parport0 so I should be able to access it.
I've also tried running Wine as root.

I still get exactly the same message.

I have also tried setting the WINEDEBUG environment variable as documented by
the manpage, but I get no debugging messages on the terminal.

I'm really stumped here. If it matters, I'm running Debian 5.0, with
Wine installed via apt.

Any help in getting this to function would be greatly appreciated. I don't
currently have a PC at home running Windows, and I don't want to start now
:)

Thanks in advance!

-Ian

Mr Ian Primus wrote:
> I have also tried setting the WINEDEBUG environment variable as documented
by the manpage, but I get no debugging messages on the terminal.
Do you get any output when run from the terminal without setting WINEDEBUG?

--- On Wed, 8/11/10, vitamin <wineforum-user at winehq.org> wrote:
> Do you get any output when run from the terminal without
> setting WINEDEBUG?
> 
Only two identical lines complaining about a font beginning with
"fixme". I get the same wether WINEDEBUG is set or not. I can post the
exact output tonight when I get home.

-Ian

Mr Ian Primus wrote:
> I have some software for an EPROM programmer that's intended to run
under Windows. Of course, I would much rather it work on Wine...
> 
> The software in question is available here:
> http://www.bkprecision.com/products/docs/software/845.zip
> 
> It installs fine, but when I run it, the software loads it's UI, and
then throws up a message box that says simply "EPrivilege". When you
click OK, the program closes.
> 
> The program, tested on my PC at work running XP, does work under Windows.
Under Windows, it displays a message that it can't communicate with the
programmer (since it's not attached), but all the menus work. Under Wine, it
never even displays that message - it seems to die as soon as it tries to
communicate.
> 
> I have a feeling this has to have something to do with the access to the
parallel port. I've read the various documentation online, and I've
tried adding the requisite keys to the registry for direct parallel port I/O. I
have also used winecfg to set Wine to run as Windows 98 (since from what
I've read, only 9x programs can do direct parallel I/O without a driver).
I've set the permissions on /dev/parport0 so I should be able to access it.
I've also tried running Wine as root.
> 
> I still get exactly the same message.
> 
> 
Never run Wine as root. Follow the instructions here to fix any permissions
errors you've created:
http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-8b89c928ce782c014b8b312469223296093e1484

What version of Wine are  you using? I downloaded the app and tested it in
1.3.0. I got the "EPrivilege" dialog when the Windows version was set
to XP, but changing it to Windows 98 fixed it--the app behaves exactly as you
describe it in Windows. Try upgrading.

Update. I actually got this to work. Part of my problem, I think, was the fact
that the software itself kind of sucks, and doesn't even reliably
communicate with the programmer under *Windows*. Testing on a Windows 98
machine, I was able to get it to work occasionally, but if I closed the software
and reopened it, it wouldn't re-establish communication with the programmer.
Similarly, sometimes it simply would not work at all - even in Windows.

Doing more research, it would seem that the BK 845 programmer I have is exactly
the same as the TopMax programmer - which has more recent software. I downloaded
that, and tried it in Windows 98... only to have it crash complaining of
oleaut32.dll problems. Whatever.

So, for grins, I tried it on the same machine, under Linux. And what do you
know, the stupid thing works. Once again, you have to set the OS type to Win98,
but it actually does function, and communicate with the programmer, and
everything works.

I had to set up the ppdev and ports keys in the registry, and changed the
permissions to allow my user to talk to the parallel port, but after that, it
worked just fine.

Only problem is that Wine doesn't render the window for the new programmer
software very well. The buttons in the toolbar are far too wide, and they
won't all fit on the screen. Running the software (on my PC at work, Windows
XP) produces properly sized buttons, but in Wine, on either PC I've tried it
on, the buttons just show up massive. The labels, text and icons are the same
size on the buttons, they just have a bunch of blank space on all of them - and
are about three times wider than they're supposed to be.
Software in question : http://www.eetools.com/downloads/ml35o.zip

Played with settings in winecfg such as allowing/not allowing window manager to
decorate windows, title bars, even set a virtual desktop of 800x600. Same
problem.

Also, this may be related, or not - but WindowMaker really freaks out with Wine
applications quite frequently. It seems like no matter what Windows app I'm
using, if I minimize it, WindowMaker crashes and restarts. Even Wine File does
this.

Any ideas?

-Ian

Mr Ian Primus wrote:
> 
> Also, this may be related, or not - but WindowMaker really freaks out with
Wine applications quite frequently. It seems like no matter what Windows app
I'm using, if I minimize it, WindowMaker crashes and restarts. Even Wine
File does this.
> 
Sounds like a bug in WindowMaker.