A looking for Excel.application won't use LibreOffice

[lhalifax]

Dear all,

I'm rather new to Wine, so please bear with me. I looked through all the relevant documentation I was able to find, but I still can't sort this out.

Scenario:
- Linux Mint 19 Tara, Cinnamon edition
- wine 3.0.3
- everything is working fine (can network connect from a program launched through wine, can print, can access local and remote disks, everything)
- custom, proprietary, closed source program I unfortunately *must* use to access a database

This program, which I didn't develop and which I can't modify in any way, looks for "Excel.application" to show some reports. Please don't ask why the programmer didn't allow an old, simple "export as CSV".

Now, I made the obvious: installed LibreOffice to use it instead of MS Excel. Relevant registry keys (excerpt w/ grep -C1):

Code: Select all

[Software\\Classes\\.xls\\OpenWithProgIDs] 1539120833
#time=1d46017c69e4fbc
"LibreOffice.Xls"=" "

[Software\\Classes\\.xlsb\\OpenWithProgIDs] 1539120833
#time=1d46017c69de7f2
"LibreOffice.Xlsb"=" "

[Software\\Classes\\.xlsm\\OpenWithProgIDs] 1539120833
#time=1d46017c69e0a20
"LibreOffice.Xlsm"=" "

[Software\\Classes\\.xlsx\\OpenWithProgIDs] 1539120833
#time=1d46017c69e2c3a
"LibreOffice.Xlsx"=" "

--
"gm_r_Reg_Xbm"="gm_p_Draw_Other_Reg"
"gm_r_Reg_Xls"="gm_p_Calc_MSO_Reg"
"gm_r_Reg_Xlsb"="gm_p_Calc_MSO_Reg"
"gm_r_Reg_Xlsm"="gm_p_Calc_MSO_Reg"
"gm_r_Reg_Xlsx"="gm_p_Calc_MSO_Reg"
"gm_r_Reg_Xlt"="gm_p_Calc_MSO_Reg"
--

"gm_r_Reg_Xls"="$3{6BHs?VD]^d85`Dx22\2gm_p_Calc_MSO_Reg"
"gm_r_Reg_Xlsb"="eej^bFtHz-2RMQa=.{*X\2gm_p_Calc_MSO_Reg"
"gm_r_Reg_Xlsm"="bZUAj%?(Ap3RR[X-g_0Y\2gm_p_Calc_MSO_Reg"
"gm_r_Reg_Xlsx"="+x*]?gVZsNx$zi7+6MPD\2gm_p_Calc_MSO_Reg"

".xls"="LibreOffice.Xls"
".xlsb"="LibreOffice.Xlsb"
".xlsm"="LibreOffice.Xlsm"
".xlsx"="LibreOffice.Xlsx"
".xlt"="LibreOffice.Xlt"

"gm_r_Reg_ms_excel"="Y~A70~9.]?bn`NC&n@%I\2gm_p_Calc_MSO_Reg"

--
#time=1d46017c6d444be
@="Microsoft Excel Web Query File"
"AppUserModelID"="TheDocumentFoundation.LibreOffice.Calc"
--
#time=1d46017c74a217a
@="Microsoft Excel 97-2003 Worksheet"
"AppUserModelID"="TheDocumentFoundation.LibreOffice.Calc"
--
#time=1d46017c74c09a4
@="Microsoft Excel Worksheet"
"AppUserModelID"="TheDocumentFoundation.LibreOffice.Calc"
--
#time=1d46017c74df480
@="Microsoft Excel Worksheet"
"AppUserModelID"="TheDocumentFoundation.LibreOffice.Calc"
--
#time=1d46017c74fd6b0
@="Microsoft Excel Worksheet"
"AppUserModelID"="TheDocumentFoundation.LibreOffice.Calc"
--
#time=1d46017c751cd26
@="Microsoft Excel 97-2003 Template"
"AppUserModelID"="TheDocumentFoundation.LibreOffice.Calc"
--
#time=1d46017c753b474
@="Microsoft Excel Template"
"AppUserModelID"="TheDocumentFoundation.LibreOffice.Calc"
--
#time=1d46017c755b7f6
@="Microsoft Excel Template"
"AppUserModelID"="TheDocumentFoundation.LibreOffice.Calc"
--
#time=1d46017b30ad8da
"41D3E28905F3B2141A2CCB29268E18F0"="00:\\ms-excel\\"

--
"gm_r_Reg_Met"="}5TQB{Vz7nbJ^y_WK!l'\2gm_p_Draw_Other_Reg"
"gm_r_Reg_ms_excel"="Y~A70~9.]?bn`NC&n@%I\2gm_p_Calc_MSO_Reg"
"gm_r_Reg_ms_powerpoint"="?zGOI7A[h==Bou!3LqGg\2gm_p_Impress_MSO_Reg"
--
#time=1d46017c79af91a
"ms-excel"="vnd.libreoffice.command"
"ms-powerpoint"="vnd.libreoffice.command"

Still, the beautiful proprietary piece of software complains about not being able to launch Excel.

Any ideas?

Since I'm not much of a Windows man, do you know something similar to 'strace' i coud use w/ wine, as in:

Code: Select all

$ wine winstrace /my/beautiful/program

so that I can see what's exactly attempting to do?

Many thanks in advance,

LH

[lahmbi5678]

It won't work that way, Libreoffice doesn't emulate all the MS Office COM/VBS/Automation stuff.

You could try to install MS Office in wine, if you have a license. Maybe the application expects a certain version of MS Office, so you should find out, which version you'd used under Windows. If it's really just about viewing documents, you could try to install the free MS Excel Viewer software in wine, but I'd expect it not to work, the Viewer software doesn't offer any automation.

[Bob Wya]

...
Since I'm not much of a Windows man, do you know something similar to 'strace' i coud use w/ wine, as in:

Code: Select all

$ wine winstrace /my/beautiful/program

...

Yes, just can still use the native strace, with Wine... As in:

Code: Select all

$ strace wine /my/beautiful/program

But as lahmbi5678 has already stated...
Your application is probably trying push data through a Windows COM API interface.
Which Libreoffice won't provide a sink for...
So you're pretty screwed, without a copy of MS Excel...

Bob