Mavis Beacon Won't Install Linux Mint 17

[Decipede]

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing V. 20
Wine Version 1.6.2

Trying to install Mavis Beacon from a file I downloaded (and not a CD). Right-clicked the Windows Installer Package "Install Mavis Platinum 20.msi" and "Open With" "Wine Windows Program Loader". The installers starts and seems to want to "go", but fails after the EULA is accepted and the installation directory is selected. The last screen says "Click Install to begin the installation" and the next screen says "The wizard was interupted before Mavis Beacon Teaches typing Platinum 20 could be completely installed" (see screen attached shots).

I have no clue what I'm doing. I've never been able to successfully install and use any program under WINE (tried 4 or 5 different programs). However "notepad" works, and I assume that's a windows program running under WINE so I have SOME functionality.

Read the WineHQ "AppDB" and someone was able to get it to work on Ubuntu 11.04.

https://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager. ... 6&sAllBugs

Any help appreciated and thanks in advance.

[dimesio]

Start by upgrading Wine; 1.6.2 is two years old. If the problem persists in 1.7.55 or later, post terminal output. http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#get_log

[Decipede]

Start by upgrading Wine; 1.6.2 is two years old. If the problem persists in 1.7.55 or later, post terminal output. http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#get_log

I upgraded WINE to 1.7.55 and it added two packages. One had to do with .NET, and the other said something about Gecko. I wonder if this is normal, or if it indicates there was a problem with the previous WINE installation.

After that, I realized my first mistake was to try to install the software while it compressed in it's original download location. I extracted the software to a new folder on the desktop and seemed to install normally. But then it would not RUN normally, so I followed the directions and have the output log file attached.

FYI this install was fine at first, but as I'm new and experimenting I've done a lot of things to it over the last 3 months or so and now I get lots of oddball errors. I suspect I've got bad installations of packages that are in beta, or something. I've had to fix the grub boot loader this week, and have had an error that says something about a "key token" or similar, and it would not connect to the internet until I entered the system password. Don't know of any of this has anything to do with WINE's issues, but I figured I should mention that the cause of the problem may have nothing to do with either WINE or Mavis Beacon.

Thanks for you help.

[Decipede]

Also I note that the .wine directory splits into two parallel directories, "dosdevices" and "drive_c" and the contents of "/home/linux/.wine/dosdevices/c:" appear to be the same as the contents of "/home/linux/.wine/dosdevices/c:", but I get the feeling they are not the same directory. When the .exe is launched from "home/linux/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Broderbund/Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Platinum 20" there is no splash screen, the mouse disappears and the system appears "locked" until you hit the "esc" key, and when the .exe is launched from "/home/linux/.wine/dosdevices/c:/Program Files (x86)/Broderbund/Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Platinum 20". there is a solid blue splash screen and the large mouse cursor of the Mavis Beacon software appears, but does not move, and the system also appears to "freeze" until the "esc" is hit.

Not sure if this is useful, but it sure is confusing.

[dimesio]

Also I note that the .wine directory splits into two parallel directories, "dosdevices" and "drive_c" and the contents of "/home/linux/.wine/dosdevices/c:" appear to be the same as the contents of "/home/linux/.wine/dosdevices/c:", but I get the feeling they are not the same directory.

That's normal; ~/.wine/dosdevices/c: is a symlink to ~/.wine/drive_c.

"home/linux/.wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Broderbund/Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing Platinum 20"

The (x86) in the path means this is a 64 bit wineprefix. Try installing to a 32 bit one. http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#32_bit_wineprefix

If that doesn't help, post terminal output.

[Decipede]

The (x86) in the path means this is a 64 bit wineprefix. Try installing to a 32 bit one. http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#32_bit_wineprefix

If that doesn't help, post terminal output.

Ok so the good news is that it seems to work. I spent about 2 minutes testing the software and it seems to be 100% functional.

However, how I got there is a little odd.

I had to sit and think and interpret what you were saying about the "(x86)" directory, as I associate that with 32-bit programming, but eventually I decided that what you were saying was that the Mavis software installed as a 32-bit program working under a 64-bit Operating System and what you wanted was for it to install as if the Operating System was 32-bit. Figured that meant that I'd have to customize the installation path in order to get that, and so the first thing to so was "uninstall" the Mavis software.

Which failed.

It went through the screens and motions of uninstallation (twice), but when I tried to reinstall (with the idea of customizing the installation directory) each time it offered to "uninstall" the Mavis software yet again. I even rebooted Linux, on the chance that it would help. It did not.

Finally I started experimenting and back-clicked the Mavis software so that it offered to "Repair", "Modify" or "Remove". "Modify" offered nothing interesting so I did a "Repair" on it and after the "Repair" completed the Mavis software started working. Which was good news.

But now I'm worried about the fact that Mavis would not Uninstall. Is this normal under WINE? Are there methods to uninstall a software under Linux, when the WINE options are not working. I'm worried because I have a bunch of other software installed under WINE that does not work and if I can't get it to work, at least I'd like to get it removed. And also, as I mentioed before, i still have some bugginess with Linux Mint proper, although some reseach has shown that my problem with "Unlock Login Keyring" is common and may be normal. Not asking for help with that here, now, but am posting the screen shot so that you can see what I'm talking about.

Thanks for the help, and please let me know if there is an alternative way to uninstall this Mavis Beacon software, if I decide to get rid of it at some point in the future. I'm also thinking about starting over from scratch and documenting the steps on how I got it to work so that someone else might have an easier time of it.

[Decipede]

The idea that just occured to me is that the whole problem started because I tried to install the Mavis Beacon software while it was compressed in it's original download directory. Had I extracted the data first to a folder, it might have installed correctly and run successfully the first time.

Maybe a future update to WINE could test the installation data first and delibarately fail the install because the source is compressed? This might increase the number of successful, first-time installations and decrease the number of problems, complaints and threads from people seeking help.