Getting EPROM programmer software to work under Wine

Mr Ian Primus · Post by **Mr Ian Primus** » Wed Aug 11, 2010 8:49 am

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/doc ... re/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

vitamin · Post by **vitamin** » Wed Aug 11, 2010 8:59 am

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?

Mr Ian Primus · Post by **Mr Ian Primus** » Wed Aug 11, 2010 9:04 am

--- On Wed, 8/11/10, vitamin <[email protected]> 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

Post by **dimesio** » Wed Aug 11, 2010 9:14 am

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/doc ... re/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-8b89c92 ... 96093e1484

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.

Mr Ian Primus · Post by **Mr Ian Primus** » Tue Aug 17, 2010 8:51 am

--- On Wed, 8/11/10, dimesio <[email protected]> wrote:

Never run Wine as root. Follow the instructions here to fix
any permissions errors you've created: http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-8b89c92 ... 96093e1484

Yeah, running Wine as root was a last-ditch attempt after I'd tried everything else. I went and doublechecked the permissions afterwards, it didn't mess anything up.

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.

Ah... Now that is weird. I'd changed the global defaults to Windows 98 to no effect, but then I actually added the program and set it to run as Windows 98, and that fixed it. It loads now.

Only problem, I still have not managed to get it to communicate with the programmer. To verify the hardware, I have taken a spare machine and stuck a blank hard drive in it, and actually installed Windows 98. The programmer DOES work under Windows 98, but communications is... finnecky. It'll work the first time, but if you close the programmer software and open it again, it fails to find the programmer. But at least I know the parallel port, cable, and programmer are working.

I took that same machine, with another blank hard drive, and did a clean load of Debian 5.0. Just the basics - X, WindowMaker, and Wine. Set up the registery key in Software\Wine\VDM\ppdev to point to /dev/parport0, and set the permissions on /dev/parport0 to 777. Ran the software, and it fails to find the programmer. Looking at dmesg output, ppdev registered the port, then unregistered it after closing the application - so at least that portion is working. Now I just need to figure out how to get this thing to actually communicate, and I'll be in business.

Oh, and what is it about Wine that really freaks out WindowMaker? If I mimimize an application, it crashes WindowMaker and it reloads. I've seen it with a couple of programs (Wine File being one), and on two different machines.

-Ian

Mr Ian Primus · Post by **Mr Ian Primus** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 8:39 am

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

Post by **dimesio** » Wed Aug 18, 2010 9:33 am

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.