Error in the winhlp32.exe Program of the WineHQ Package

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helpfiles.tgz

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The "Marriage" Program (an old card game application) contains 5 help files provided with it. The names of these files are:

• CLUB.HLP, CODEX.HLP, CUP.HLP, MARRIAGE.HLP and RULES.HLP,

they are in the .tgz archive helpfiles.tgz, I've attached to my message.

When trying to open any of these files with the winhlp32.exe utility an error occurs. This error can be easily reproduced from the Linux command line. For example, for the MARRIAGE.HLP file the corresponding command would be something like that

• wine ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/winhlp32.exe MARRIAGE.HLP

This command, being invoked, produces an error message

• wine: Unhandled page fault on read access to 00000000 at address 00408DDD (thread 0024), starting debugger...

it's a memory page fault. It seems from this message text, an attempt is made to either dereference a NULL pointer in a C or C++ program or to dereference a pointer which addresses a wrong place in memory.

Of all the 5 help files listed above 4 files:

• CLUB.HLP, CUP.HLP, MARRIAGE.HLP and RULES.HLP

led to the memory fault, I've just mentioned, when I tried to open them with the winhlp32.exe utility.

And there was only a single file

• CODEX.HLP

I managed to open with this program, but it was depicted in a wrong encoding as a senseless set of symbols.

Thus, 4 files when tried to be opened with winhlp32.exe cause a memory fault and 1 file causes an encoding error.

All the results, I have described here, can be reproduced with the following commands.

• I. For the files, which lead to the page memory fault in the winhlp32.exe program:
  
  • 1) wine ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/winhlp32.exe CLUB.HLP
  • 2) wine ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/winhlp32.exe CUP.HLP
  • 3) wine ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/winhlp32.exe MARRIAGE.HLP
  • 4) wine ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/winhlp32.exe RULES.HLP
• II. For the file, which was opened by winhlp32.exe, but depicted with a wrong symbol set:
  
  • wine ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/winhlp32.exe CODEX.HLP

I should emphasize that in the Windows operating system all the 5 files are opened and displayed flawlessly, and they lead to neither system failures, nor to encoding mistakes.

In conclusion I'll specify the operating system, which I tested the winhlp32.exe program with these help files on. It is Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm), version 12.2.0-14. Wine was installed from the official WineHQ server https://dl.winehq.org/, it is a stable branch, its version is wine-9.0.