Drake Tax Preparation Software

[swani]

I had this running last year. I updated from an older mandriva to mint cinammon 15. I then updated wine to 1.6. Still, I am unable to now use this program. It starts up okay, lets me enter some data, then when I try to save it I get a freezeup.

fixme: msxml: domdoc_get_parse Error (0x......) -> 0x48e1e0: creating a dummy parse

WTF?

Appreciate any help here! I guess never upgrade is the best solution?

[KenSharp]

Update to Wine 1.7.11.

[swani]

Okay, how is the best way to do that in Mint 15? I found some instrux to do the 1.6 the "apt-get" way. Do I need to just download & compile from source for the 1.7?

[swani]

I guess what I wonder is, the older version (I don't know, probably 1.3 or older....) worked okay last year. So what is happening here? I'm up to 1.6 and still no work, why will 1.7 be any better? Do I need to regress? Why these problems? And it *isn't* just the new Drake software. I had wine running older versions of Drake last year, back to like 2008 or so. The new wine version will not run them either! Obviously there is some bug in the newer Wine versions, if anyone could help it would be most appreciated.

[dimesio]

When you upgraded Wine, did you reinstall the software to a clean wineprefix? If you didn't, try doing that. If it doesn't work in a clean wineprefix in 1.7.11, post terminal output. http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#get_log

[swani]

I guess that's the problem using Mint's ubuntu-ish apt-get methods. You have no idea what a wineprefix is or whether a clean one was used. I'll try out a compile and install of 1.7; although it's been a long time since I've gotten down under the hood and looked at stuff....

[swani]

Okay. I did:
mv ~/.wine ~/.old_wine
mkdir ~/.wine

Then I installed 1.7

Running drake, I open a client, attempt to enter new information in his W-2 screen.

swani@wol:~$ wine /mnt/jo/DRAKE13/FT/DSTART.EXE &> log.txt
swani@wol:~$ cat log.txt
fixme:msxml:domdoc_get_parseError (0x320684)->(0x48e0a4): creating a dummy parseError
fixme:msxml:domdoc_get_parseError (0x5fd814)->(0x48e0a4): creating a dummy parseError

Sure would appreciate any help!

swani@wol:~$

[dimesio]

Okay. I did:
mv ~/.wine ~/.old_wine
mkdir ~/.wine

Do not create the directory yourself. Wine has to create it. If the wineprefix doesn't exist, wine should automatically create one when you run anything, including any of Wine's builtin programs (such as winecfg).

Then I installed 1.7

Running drake, I open a client, attempt to enter new information in his W-2 screen.

swani@wol:~$ wine /mnt/jo/DRAKE13/FT/DSTART.EXE &> log.txt

At what point did you install Drake? Did you install it in Wine at all? Where exactly is /mnt/jo/DRAKE13/FT located? Running from a Windows partition is not supported.

Please reinstall Drake to a clean wineprefix using current Wine, and when running it, cd to the program directory first. http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#run_from_terminal

[swani]

So I should delete the directory which I created, then restart wine?

Drake runs on the secretary's windoze computer. /mnt/jo is a link to her drive on our network. This is how I always ran drake before. I don't think I can actually install drake on my machine. It needs to run on *her* machine.

[dimesio]

You can try deleting ~/.wine and letting Wine create a proper wineprefix, but unless Drake is a standalone exe that doesn't need to be installed, you need to install it in Wine, too, just as you would in Windows.

[swani]

"install". What exactly does that mean? Place all of the drake programs off of the CD or DVD onto wherever the "wineprefix" is? Onto my linux machine?
Or does "install" mean to somehow trick the existing installation on the secretary's windoze machine into recognizing my "wineprefix"?
It seems strange that if Drake isn't installed, that I can go into wine, log in to my account, view all of the 100's of accounts that exist on her computer, select one of them, go into a form, make additions. But it just won't save the data and freezes up. Did that error message give any clue?

[dimesio]

"install". What exactly does that mean? Place all of the drake programs off of the CD or DVD onto wherever the "wineprefix" is? Onto my linux machine?

It means run the installer for the program, if there is one, the same as you would on Windows. Most installers do more than just copy files--they make registry entries as well, and those need to be made in the wineprefix's registry for the program to work in Wine. Plus, there is also the fact that running from a non-native filesystem can also cause problems. Running from a Windows partition might work sometimes for some apps, but it is not supported.

[swani]

Ok. I removed the .wine directory. Then I found an old Drake paper manual which told the rigamarole to go through to install to a network station and did that:

swani@wol:~$ sudo rm -fr .wine
swani@wol:~$ wine /mnt/jo/DRAKE13/NWCLIENT/NWCLIENT.EXE
wine: created the configuration directory '/home/swani/.wine'
fixme:storage:create_storagefile Storage share mode not implemented.
err:mscoree:LoadLibraryShim error reading registry key for installroot
err:mscoree:LoadLibraryShim error reading registry key for installroot
err:mscoree:LoadLibraryShim error reading registry key for installroot
err:mscoree:LoadLibraryShim error reading registry key for installroot
fixme:storage:create_storagefile Storage share mode not implemented.
fixme:iphlpapi:NotifyAddrChange (Handle 0xede880, overlapped 0xede88c): stub
wine: configuration in '/home/swani/.wine' has been updated.
err:ole:CoInitializeEx (0x33fa30, 2) - Bad parameter passed-in 0x33fa30, must be an old Windows Application

Then (after setting up drives in the new wineheader or whatever you call it) I tried running Drake:

swani@wol:~$ wine /mnt/jo/DRAKE13/FT/DSTART.EXE

Actually, it *looked* a little better, but still after entering data and attempting to save, it crashed with the same old errors I've shown here before:

swani@wol:~$ fixme:msxml:domdoc_get_parseError (0x32067c)->(0x48dda4): creating a dummy parseError
fixme:msxml:domdoc_get_parseError (0x602a9c)->(0x48dda4): creating a dummy parseError

So fixme! Please?

[dimesio]

swani@wol:~$ sudo rm -fr .wine

That removed the old .wine

swani@wol:~$ wine /mnt/jo/DRAKE13/NWCLIENT/NWCLIENT.EXE
wine: created the configuration directory '/home/swani/.wine'

Assuming NWCLIENT.EXE is the installer for Drake, that would have created a new .wine and installed Drake to it. So far, so good.

Then (after setting up drives in the new wineheader or whatever you call it) I tried running Drake:

swani@wol:~$ wine /mnt/jo/DRAKE13/FT/DSTART.EXE

Here's your problem: you are not running the exe you installed to .wine, you are running an exe installed elsewhere. You need to run the DSTART.EXE that you just installed in .wine.

[swani]

swani@wol:~$ find ~/.wine -iname 'dstart*'
swani@wol:~$

No such animal. The Drake documentation specifically says that the "software is installed only on the server".

[dimesio]

So what exactly got installed on your computer?

I did notice this in the output you posted earlier:

err:ole:CoInitializeEx (0x33fa30, 2) - Bad parameter passed-in 0x33fa30, must be an old Windows Application

How old is this app? If it's Windows 95/98 era, you might try setting the Windows version to 95 or 98 in winecfg.

[swani]

It's brand new. The secretary is running XP. I tried changing the config to 98 and it said 'no support' and wouldn't even run. Yeah, I noticed that 'old Windows app' error. Weird. I do have an email in to Drake tech support, but good luck with that....

[dimesio]

You could try native msxml3; install it with winetricks.

[swani]

I didn't see that in the winetricks list of apps. I did install abiword which I'd completely forgotten about. It looked as if it was using ~/.local/share/wineprefixes to install it into. Yet when I ask winetricks about the default wineprefixes it says ~/.wine. Oh well.

Anyway, haven't heard anything from Drake support (surprise, surprise!) Keep mucking around, I guess....

[dimesio]

The winetricks GUI menu is very poorly organized. Just do it from the command line:

Code: Select all

winetricks msxml3

It looked as if it was using ~/.local/share/wineprefixes to install it into. Yet when I ask winetricks about the default wineprefixes it says ~/.wine.

The default wineprefix for plain Wine is ~/.wine. Winetricks installs apps to ~/.local/share/wineprefixes unless you specify --no-isolate; however, it does not do that for dlls.

[swani]

Well, I thought I had it working. Drake actually let me save a couple of figures into a tax return! Then it crashed again:

swani@wol:~$ wine /mnt/jo/DRAKE13/FT/DSTART.EXE
swani@wol:~$ fixme:msxml:domdoc_get_parseError (0x32072c)->(0x48e0a4): creating a dummy parseError
fixme:msxml:domdoc_get_parseError (0x600ed4)->(0x48e0a4): creating a dummy parseError

Drake software support basically told me they have no interest in helping anyone run on linux or mac. Go figure.

I did get a network client running on a different windoze machine. Running the nwclient.exe, it told me it was putting some stuff onto the local desktop, and there is a shortcut there. Where would I look for that in ~/.wine to see if it did the same here? Boy this is frustrating!

[dimesio]

Check your system's menus.

[swani]

Oh, duh. Sorry....

Any ideas at all? Do those error msgs mean anything to anyone?

[swani]

Okay, I'd been trying to run Drake just from the commandline.

Now I see those icons. They don't work.

The one has this as the commandline:

env WINEPREFIX="/home/swani/.wine" wine C:\\windows\\command\\start.exe /Unix /home/swani/.wine/dosdevices/c:/users/Public/Desktop/Drake\ 2013\ Tax\ -\ F\ drive.Lnk

I am baffled.

The icon on the windoze machine has the "target":
F:\DRAKE13\FT\DSTART.EXE
Which is basically what I've been trying to do from cmdline.