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CrossOver Mac is available as a public beta

Posted in Apple, Downloadable by Dan at 4:00 pm

shot_mac_visio Codeweavers has posted a, obvioiusly, universal binary of thier “CrossOver Office” product.

CrossOver Mac allows you to install your favorite Windows applications and games on Mac OS X. CrossOver includes an easy to use, single click interface, which makes installing Windows software simple and fast. Once installed, your application integrates seamlessly in OS X. Just click and run your application directly from the OS X Finder. Clicking a Windows file or document � including email attachments � will launch the appropriate Windows program, allowing you to work on the files. Best of all, you do it all easily and affordably, without needing a Microsoft operating system license.

Sounds ideal? It isn’t! The program is based on Wine, which is a buggy at best Windows emulation client. However, for every person I have spoken to that says Wine doest work, I speak to someone who says it does. The only way to judge is to try it yourself!

Try It

9 Responses to “CrossOver Mac is available as a public beta”

  1. Derek says:
    8/31/2006 at 4:51 pm

    Down with Microsoft for simple Internet Explorer browser checks!

  2. ClaMs says:
    8/31/2006 at 5:48 pm

    Can’t wait for the official version. God knows how cool that would be if it worked flawlessly (or almost at least). I so excited. The possibilities are endless.

  3. Jared says:
    8/31/2006 at 5:53 pm

    WINE is not an emulator

  4. Dan says:
    8/31/2006 at 7:47 pm

    Wine is an emulator! It emulates windows calls.

  5. Joe says:
    8/31/2006 at 7:56 pm

    First, Crossover’s WINEs have always worked better in my experience than traditional WINE. That’s not to say I’d run a nuclear power plant with it or anything. It’s fine for some games or IE or something like that (in my experiences, at least)

    Second, it’s not a Universal binary, it’s Intel specific. PowerPC owners get a big giant no symbol over the icon, and a “You cannot open the application ‘CrossOver’ because it is not supported on this architecture” message if you try running it.

  6. Joe says:
    8/31/2006 at 8:00 pm

    WINE is an acronym which stands for \”WINE is not an emulator.\” As listed on their \”Debunking WINE Myths\” page at http://www.winehq.com/site/docs/wine-faq/index

    2.2. Does Wine emulate a full computer?

    No, as the name says, Wine Is Not a (CPU) Emulator. Wine just provides the Windows API. This means that you will need an x86-compatible processor to run an x86 Windows application, for instance from Intel or AMD. The advantage is that, unlike solutions that rely on CPU emulation, Wine runs applications at full speed. Sometimes a program run under Wine will be slower than when run on a copy of Microsoft Windows, but this is more due to the fact that Microsoft has heavily optimized parts of their code, whereas mostly Wine is not well optimized (yet). Occasionally, an app may run faster under Wine than on Windows. Most apps run at roughly the same speed.

  7. Derek says:
    9/1/2006 at 2:33 am

    Ok. Shout out to anyone who has managed to get IE7 installed via CrossOver. Anyone?

  8. Ronald Poi says:
    9/1/2006 at 8:03 am

    I don’t care if WINE is or not an emulator (i think is not), if it gives me the possibility to run IE6 to test my websites, it simply works…

  9. Dissapointed :( says:
    3/29/2007 at 1:51 am

    I understand… Is it even possible to have a Windows Emulator for Mac PowerPCs?

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