Mac|Life - November 2011

3Installing Internet Explorer 7 Using CrossOver Presets

The easiest way to get started is with one of CrossOver’s many compatible presets. Click the Install Windows Software button from the welcome screen, and you’ll be greeted with a list of applications guaranteed to work. While many of these require you to have original installation discs, others like Internet Explorer 7 can be downloaded and installed immediately.

Select Internet Explorer 7 from the list and click Install to download it from the Codeweavers website, along with the necessary components—in this case, Core Fonts, Flash 10 ActiveX Control, and Microsoft XML Parser 3.0. You’ll get a pop-up window or two prompting you to accept license agreements; click Yes (or Next) as they come up, and the installation will proceed. Be sure the option to download updates or virus protection is unchecked—Codeweavers claims these may cause the installation to fail. Such caveats, if applicable, are listed in the Installation Notes portion of the Installer window.

After the install, you’ll be prompted to “restart” your computer, meaning your bottle for IE7; accepting will finish the installation and you won’t have to restart your Mac. To run IE7, click Run Installed Software from the welcome screen, browse through the Accessories folder that opens in the Finder, and double-click the icon. Now sit back and party like it’s 2006!

Internet Explorer 7 is one of many presets included with CrossOver.

4Try Out Unsupported Applications CrossOver has dedicated users working to make unsupported applications play nice within its virtual walls. At present there are 250 such applications, which can be found at the bottom of the Software Installer list (along with Service Packs, Upgrades, and Runtime Support Components).

To try out one of these applications, look for the Community Supported section under Unsupported Applications, select Quick Time 7, and click Install. You’ll see a Quick Time for Windows installer window; click Next and then Yes at the license agreement, and finally Install. Launching Quick Time Player will give you a taste of why such installs are considered unsupported—the window flickers incessantly on our mid-2010 iMac, although we did manage to sort of play an RTSP streaming video, sans controller buttons.

QuickTime for Windows isn’t fully supported, but the CrossOver user community has made it possible to install anyway.

5Make CrossOver Work for You Now that you’ve wrapped your head around CrossOver, explore customizing it. A visit to CrossOver > Preferences gives you the ability to “Include entries for untested and known-not-to-work software” under Installer Assistant, as well as choosing Keyboard and Mouse settings to make the left and right Option key work like the Windows Alt key or access additional characters (the Command key always functions as Ctrl).

Finally, you can choose how you want removable discs to behave under System Integration. If you want CrossOver to open Windows discs by default, choose “Always open Windows CDs and DVDs with CrossOver”; likewise, you can ask for confirmation before launching (the default setting) or ignore disc insertion altogether.