Wine 9.8 Fixes Nearly 20 Year Old Bug For Installing Microsoft Office 97

[Volta]

This is exactly why I keep saying that if you want to run Windows software, use Windows.

You've got to be kidding. Many windows games work better under Linux and upcoming nt synchronization patches will make them run even better. Not to mention you're not wasting disk space on m$ OS that messes your disks set up.

[Volta]

The outside world is evil. Linux desktop user mentality in a nutshell.

That's why you're not using antivirus, firewall and install everything from the net on your winblows machine. Oh wait..

[schmidtbag]

Have you tried running Windows 98 on a modern computer? Last time I did this the best AMD had to offer was an FX Bulldozer, pre Zen architecture. I could kind of get Windows XP to run on a Phenom II series motherboard because those had floppy drive connectors and often times still IDE connectors and more importantly floppy drivers for SATA ports. That same Phenom II wouldn't run Windows 98 at all, I know because I tried. One of the last systems I got to run Windows 98 was displaying the graphics in grey scale only, no color. I can't imagine how hard it is to get XP or 9x running on a Zen 4!

Not 98 (never attempted it) but I've got 95 to run on a modern computer, via a VM. Quite easy if you use something like QEMU.

[ZeroPointEnergy]

Many high end digital cameras capture images in RAW and ProRes simultaneously, the RAW is debayered and encoded to lossless for archival and the ProRes is what is sent out for finishing, editing, VFX, etc.

Do you at least see what a risk such a lock-in is and how you are at a complete mercy of this software company. Even if they have a good track record of not trying to abuse their quasy-monopoly to squeeze as much money as they can out of the market they cornered, the probability that at some point the company gets sold to a bigger one exactly because some investor sees an opportunity to do that is pretty high.

Companies or whole industries who have this lock-ins are at a severe risk, and apparently we did not have enough examples of that actually playing out for most people to care. If you are responsible you should work towards eliminating such dependencies as much as possible in your industry to lower that risk. I for sure always push for open source solutions whenever I can.

But anyway, it seems this is similar to the whole privacy thing. Most people just can't think a couple steps ahead and have to endure the pain to realize the issue.

[sophisticles]

Do you at least see what a risk such a lock-in is and how you are at a complete mercy of this software company. Even if they have a good track record of not trying to abuse their quasy-monopoly to squeeze as much money as they can out of the market they cornered, the probability that at some point the company gets sold to a bigger one exactly because some investor sees an opportunity to do that is pretty high.

Companies or whole industries who have this lock-ins are at a severe risk, and apparently we did not have enough examples of that actually playing out for most people to care. If you are responsible you should work towards eliminating such dependencies as much as possible in your industry to lower that risk. I for sure always push for open source solutions whenever I can.

But anyway, it seems this is similar to the whole privacy thing. Most people just can't think a couple steps ahead and have to endure the pain to realize the issue.

Here's the thing, there's an old saying that if you build a better mouse trap the world will beat a path to your door.

Apple, under Job's leadership, decided to target a market segment that was wealthy and resilient to economic downturn and they built an excellent mouse trap, namely ProRes.

There was a significant demand for what Apple offered and today there is a significant demand for the ProRes/RAW hardware acceleration that Apple offers

Tears of Steel is a perfect example, it is an open source movie, created by the Blender people, and the goal was to make a movie using only open source software.

If you read what it took to accomplish this you realize that it is completely impractical, to use the methods they used to create a commercial film would take an inordinate amount of time and money and more importantly, as they point out, they are not completely sure they were able to use a fully open source pipeline because there was things that needed to be sent out to professional movie production houses and while they asked that the contractors only use open source software, they also allowed them to do what needed to be done.

I can guarantee you that there was at least one Apple computer somewhere in the production pipeline.

And even if they somehow managed to do everything using open source, they still had to use a proprietary camera, namely a Sony F65m so they failed to use a fully open source pipeline from the moment they started.

The open source community needs to wake up, or more importantly, grow up.

Literally everything in your life that you use is created using proprietary technology.

It always amazes me that people demand the software they use be open source but have no problem using proprietary hardware to do so.

[oiaohm]

Not 98 (never attempted it) but I've got 95 to run on a modern computer, via a VM. Quite easy if you use something like QEMU.

https://wiki.qemu.org/Documentation/GuestOperatingSystems/Windows95#Issues

schmidtbag the reality even with Qemu you are one typo/update away from stuffing up your Windows 95 install. The 9x line is touchy on modern hardware in modern vms. Be very careful of the works for me. Big use case the corner cases with the 9x line of windows comes a major problem.

Qemu is fine windows 95 you remain in software emulation mode of the right CPU. Dangerous part those building Qemu packages can change this default cpu emulation qemu uses. You make the mistake of using kvm as the virtualization mode for more speed or select the wrong software emulated CPU and the windows 9x installs 100 percent dead.

Wine on Linux is a lot less touchy with less ways for user to screw it up.

Basically what you posted was a works for me. The reality 9x line don't like modern CPUs. You have to software emulate old CPU and not manage to screw that up. Not all VM have software emulation. In business environment where a person may try to increase the performance then call tech-support because it broke the qemu option is not that great due to the down time this causes.

Yes QEMU appears quick and easy to use a Windows 9x but it also quick and easy with QEMU to destroy a Windows 9x install. Quick and easy for the user to stuff it is not great in business environment.

[kylew77]

Not 98 (never attempted it) but I've got 95 to run on a modern computer, via a VM. Quite easy if you use something like QEMU.

I had not tried QEMU but since it can emulate an actual 32bit x86 computer that is a great plan! I was talking about running bare metal in my post though.

[schmidtbag]

oiaohm Early versions of Windows were finnicky to install, but the nice thing about using something like QEMU is the "hardware" is rather limited, so I'm sure there are plenty of guides on how to install fully working versions of legacy Windows. Meanwhile, being a VM, it's quite easy to make snapshots before you continue meddling with it.

[oiaohm]

oiaohm Early versions of Windows were finnicky to install, but the nice thing about using something like QEMU is the "hardware" is rather limited, so I'm sure there are plenty of guides on how to install fully working versions of legacy Windows. Meanwhile, being a VM, it's quite easy to make snapshots before you continue meddling with it.

https://wiki.qemu.org/Documentation/GuestOperatingSystems/Windows95#Issues

I pointed you to a guide.

Using newer versions of the x86 processor via the "-cpu" option may lead to compatibility issues. Consider making a backup of your hard drive image file before experimenting.

Why is it back drive image before touching CPU image. That right because cpu incompadible can result in totally corrupted partition.

When using in archive work and the like its not just about getting the OS running. Its that the OS has not self destructed and taking like 4-8hours of employee work with it. Wine based solution does not have this behavior.

Really it does not matter how many Install guides you read it does not change that all the Windows 9X line have the property of incompatible CPU equal corrupted hard-drive partition.

Yes a snapshot is not a fix to this problem. Because between snapshots users will have done work. The problem is the data loss due to how Windows 9X fails. Just use windows in a VM is not a solution for business usage of the Windows 9x line. Windows 3.11 and before and anything NT based yes run in a VM it cpu be incompatible we don't destroy the partition just with the OS.

Like it or not there is a nasty property to 9x line of Windows. Yes then MS Office 97 has a nasty feature with it search indexing service when running on a Windows NT based OS of random-ally damaging and Office 97 does not run without search indexing. The problem with MS Office 97 and Windows 9x series is data corruption.

schmidtbag please drop the argument it just has to work. The reality is it does not work stability. Most stable way to use MS Office 97 is on a Linux under wine. This including installing a 20 year old version of Linux in a virtual machine or container to have wine version before the change that resulted in MS Office 97 not working. This change allows using a current version of wine again.

[CochainComplex]

Finally I can upgrade! MS Office 95 ....is sooo '95