CrossOver

CrossOver Linux is a commercial product that provides Linux users with an easy way (yet expensive) to install various applications and games that run only on the proprietary Microsoft Windows operating systems.

Technically, the application is a GUI (Graphical User Interface) front-end for the well known Wine software, which provides a set of APIs and libraries to emulate several Microsoft Windows OSes on top of an open source Linux-based operating system.

Features at a glance

By default, the program comes with support for a very large selection of Windows applications, allowing users to install and use them without the need for a Microsoft Windows license. However, this does not mean that you won’t have to own a specific software license.

It is distributed as free for 30 days binary packages that support the Ubuntu 12.04 LTS or older distributions, Ubuntu 12.10 or newer, Linux Mint 14 or newer, Debian GNU/Linux Wheezy or any other distro that uses Debian packages, as well as Red Hat, Fedora and other RPM-based operating systems.

Supported Windows applications

Considering the fact that CrossOver is just a simple user interface for Wine, it comes with support for all the applications that can be installed by the latter, such as the entire Microsoft Office 2007/2003/XP/2000/97 suite, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Outlook, and Microsoft Access.

Among some other Windows-only applications that can be installed by this software, we can mention Internet Explorer, Microsoft Project, Adobe Photoshop, Lotus Notes, Microsoft Visio, Quicken, FrameMaker, Shockwave Director, QuickTime, Windows Media Player, as well as numerous games.

Bottom line

We will give only three stars to this project, simply because it is not moral to take advantage of an open source project, just because it’s popular, create a simple interface for it and sell it. There are several other Wine GUI front-ends out there, completely free and far better than CrossOver!

What is new in this release:

• Application Support:
• Fixed a bug that prevented installing and launching games in newly downloaded Steam bottles. Users can now install the latest Steam app and use without modification.
• macOS:
• CrossOver 17.5.1 includes preliminary support for the beta version of macOS Mojave 10.14.

What is new in version 17.1.0:

• CrossOver 17.1 supports Quicken 2018, the latest version of Quicken.
• CrossOver 17.1 resolves problems some of our users have seen running CrossOver on macOS machines with macOS 10.13, High Sierra. Not all of our High Sierra users have been impacted, but many CrossOver users on High Sierra have experienced consistent crashes. We believe CrossOver 17.1 should resolve these problems and restore functionality for these users.
• CrossOver 17.1 also improves registration and activation with Microsoft Office 365 subscriptions for Office 2016. Users who experienced failures with activation or sign-on with Office 365 subscriptions should see those problems resolved.

What is new in version :

• Application Support:
• CrossOver now supports Outlook 2013.
• Bugs with Quicken updates have been fixed.
• Connection issues with Outlook 2010 have been fixed.
• Bugs activating Office 2013 in some circumstances have been fixed.
• Wine Update:
• CrossOver 16.2.0 includes the final release of Wine 2.0.
• Performance Enhancements and Other Improvements:
• We have made improvements to our Performance Enhanced Graphics which should improve performance with a variety of games.
• Windowing behavior on macOS will be faster and more reliable in some circumstances, including cases where productivity-style applications make use of OpenGL.
• Bugs with copy / paste have been fixed on macOS.

What is new in version 16.1.0:

• Application Support:
• CrossOver now supports Quicken 2017.
• Bug Fixes:
• Fixed a bug which prevented Microsoft Office 2013 from installing in the Spanish locale.
• Fixed a problem which could prevent Microsoft Office 2010 from completing online activation.
• Fixed a bug in the CrossOver preferences pane which prevented the preference for recording usage statistics from being properly displayed.

What is new in version 16.0.0:

• Application Support:
• CrossOver now supports Microsoft Office 2013!
• Microsoft Office 2013 can be activated with either an Office 365 subscription or a product key.
• Core Technology Improvements:
• CrossOver 16 is based on Wine 2.0, with thousands of improvements to Windows compatibility across the board.
• CrossOver now supports 64-bit Windows applications, with new bottle templates and 64-bit dependency management.
• Bug Fixes:
• Quicken 2014-2016 updates will now apply automatically during installation.
• Fixed a bug which prevented saving very large files in Microsoft Excel 2010
• Fixed a bug which prevented opening hyperlinks from documents in Microsoft Office 2010.
• Shell folder links will now be updated when importing bottles into CrossOver from an archive file.
• Fixed an audio bug which could cause Blizzard games to emit unwanted noises from the speaker.
• Fixed a bug in Tencent QQ which caused the application to hang when adding a new contact.
• Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 will display correctly again.

What is new in version 15.2.0:

• Bug Fixes:
• Microsoft Office 2007 and 2010 can now correctly embed fonts when exporting to PDF format.
• Fixed a crash in Tencent QQ instant messenger.
• Several graphics cards which would previously go unrecognized by CrossOver will now be properly identified.
• CrossOver's automatic detection of the amount of available Video RAM is improved.

What is new in version 15.1.0:

• Mac OS X:
• Improved some confusing behavior in CrossOver's Software Installer.
• Fixed a bug where CrossOver's Software Installer would hang while looking for compatible bottles.
• Improved our resilience to custom Python installations. We now refrain from loading custom Python module installed in system directories, which prevents crashes when incompatible modules are present.
• Improved security for Sparkle updates.
• General Improvements:
• Fixed a problem initializing some fonts with dwrite, which could cause Steam to fail.
• Fixed a bug in setting CrossOver's anti-virus scanner from a configuration file.
• Application Support:
• Fixed a bug which caused Heroes of the Storm to freeze.
• Fixed a bug which prevented login to World of Warcraft.
• Fixed some graphical problems in Alekhine's Gun on Intel graphics hardware.
• Fixed a bug which caused Microsoft Excel to hang when accepting non-English input via an Input Method Editor.

What is new in version 15.0.1:

• Mac OS X:
• Fixes for various user interface bugs on OS X 10.8
• General Improvements:
• The final, release version of Wine 1.8 has been merged into this release.
• We now have better support for display of Chinese characters in situations where not all Chinese fonts are available.
• Various non-English translations have been improved.
• Application Support:
• The backup feature in Quicken has been fixed.
• Quicken versions 2004 and earlier are again able to open database files.
• Fixed a bug which prevented StarCraft from running on OS X.
• Fixed a bug which prevented South Park: Stick of Truth from running.
• Linux:
• CrossOver will install successfully on CentOS 6.7.
• CrossOver will install successfully when dbus fails.

What is new in version 15.0:

• CrossOver now uses PulseAudio for sound if it is available on the system.
• CrossOver has a completely redone User Interface on Linux.
• Application Support:
• Quicken 2016 now runs in CrossOver.
• General Improvements:
• Wine 1.8 brings thousands of updates to CrossOver's core compatibility with Windows applications.
• Dual screen Linux setups will run Microsoft Office better than before.

What is new in version 14.1.3:

• Updated the version of the gnutls library we use for compatibility with newer Debian and Ubuntu distributions. This will fix connection issues in Diablo III as well as other possible problems.

What is new in version 14.1.1:

• Allow a new behavior by setting an environment variable, CX_DIRECT_DESKTOP. Bottles created when this environment variable is set will use the native Desktop directly instead of putting a link to it on the Windows Desktop

What is new in version 14.1.0:

• Application Support:
• It is again possible to install .Net 3.5.
• Fixed a hang when using ATOK, a third-party Japanese input method.
• The Equation Editor menu bar in Word 2003 and Word 97 now works.
• The Equation Editor in Word 2003 will no longer freeze after multiple launches.
• Typing a URL into an outgoing email in Outlook 2003 now automatically generates a clickable hyperlink.
• Changing fonts in Outlook 2003 is now possible.
• Improved behavior of CrossOver's built-in web browser in certain web-sites.
• Fixed a crash when displaying certain characters with Uniscribe in Outlook 2010.
• Mac OS X:
• Fixed a bug which caused application launchers to disappear when a bottle was renamed.
• Fixed a problem which made it difficult to change the window size for a maximized window (Quicken was among the impacted applications).
• Linux:
• Updated package dependencies to allow installation on Ubuntu 14.0.4.2.
• Optimized the CrossOver Software Installer for faster startup times in many cases.
• Fixed a bug which sometimes caused CrossOver to fail to open links in native web browsers.
• Added a new option, --destdir, to various internal CrossOver command line tools. This may make package generation for Gentoo Linux easier.

What is new in version 14.0.0:

• Linux:
• CrossOver can now automatically detect and install missing packages on many Linux distributions, making it easier to get the packages you need. CrossOver will attempt to install a minimal set of packages on first-run, and will also attempt to install packages needed by specific Windows applications when those Windows applications are installed.
• CrossOver has fixed a bug with the way it uses threads in GTK (this bug fix allows CrossOver to run on Ubuntu 14.10).
• CrossOver should now detect proxy settings on systems which use GSettings.
• Fixed proxy detection for certain KDE configurations.
• Application Support:
• New Supported Applications:
• CrossOver now supports Quicken 2015 on both OS X and Linux.
• CrossOver now supports Hearthstone on Linux.
• CrossOver now supports Cube World on both OS X and Linux.
• CrossOver now supports Path of Exile on both OS X and Linux.
• CrossOver now supports WarCraft III on Linux.
• CrossOver now supports EuroTruck Simulator 2 on both OS X and Linux.
• CrossOver now supports Terraria on both OS X and Linux.
• CrossOver now supports South Park: The Stick of Truth on both OS X and Linux.
• CrossOver now supports Xenonauts both OS X and Linux.
• Bug fixes:
• The "Save a copy as" feature in Quicken 2014 is now functional.
• Quicken 2014 is now able to validate data files.
• Quicken 2014 now displays its update notice correctly.
• Quicken 2014 will now remember when its windows are re-sized.
• Scrolling using a trackpad on an Apple laptop will now work in Quicken 2014.
• Formatting of message timestamps in Outlook 2010 has been improved.
• Many games - Deus Ex:Human Revolution - no longer require the Legacy X Window System to run on OS X.
• CrossOver's built-in web-browser has improved and now loads more sites, including the U-Haul web-site and the web-site for the United States Copyright Office.
• Steam can now be hidden reliably on OS X.
• Legacy Family Tree 7 will now run under CrossOver on OS X.
• Printing will now work when MathType is installed alongside Word 2007.

What is new in version 13.2.0:

• General Bug Fixes:
• Fixes for stability of games running with Performance Enhanced Graphics.
• Adobe Acrobat 10 and 11 will now install.
• Users with certain non-Latin characters in their codeweavers.com usernames can now successfully register CrossOver.
• Linux:
• CrossOver now depends on several additional packages, which in turn allows more Windows applications to run without further user intervention.
• Certain Linux kernel versions (3.14 at least) broke support for running 16-bit code. CrossOver cannot overcome this limitation on its own. CrossOver now detects the situation and informs the user about it, and will also succeed in creating a win98 bottle on such a kernel.

What is new in version 13.1.3:

• Application Support:
• Added support for Blizzard's Battle.net Desktop Application.
• Mac OS X:
• Fixed a bug in CrossOver's self-update logic.
• Linux:
• Fixed an incompatibility between the version of libxcb shipped with CrossOver and the Ubuntu 14.04.
• Language Support:
• Improvements to the Russian language translation.
• Improvements to the Romanian language translation.

What is new in version 13.1.2:

• Application Support:
• Improvements to Quicken 2014
• Quicken 2014 functions better on dual-monitor setups. Quicken can only display on the primary monitor, but should be more usable.
• The tab key should now behave properly by switching focus from one field to the next.
• Various other rendering bugs are fixed.
• Programs can now be installed directly from the Amazon Downloader service (Quicken 2014 is one program which is often purchased as an Amazon download).
• Adobe Reader XI now installs and runs.

What is new in version 13.1.0:

• CrossOver now supports Quicken 2014

What is new in version 13.0.1:

• Application Support:
• Fixed a problem which caused Steam to crash after login.
• Fixed a problem which caused Quicken 2013 to fail to connect to certain on-line accounts.
• Fixed a bug in Tencent QQ, a popular Chinese instant-messaging application.
• Linux:
• Fixed a problem which caused CrossOver's Bottle Manager to fail on older Linux distributions, including RHEL 6 and CentOS 6.

What is new in version 13.0.0:

• Games Support:
• CrossOver 13 has our new Performance Enhanced Graphics. Games will run faster, with higher frame rates! This is a major overhaul of the 3D graphics processing in CrossOver, and gives significant improvements in many, many popular games.
• The launcher for Borderlands 2 is working.
• Both the Gem Store and mouse work with Guild Wars 2.
• The mouse pointer in Terraria is now accurate when the window is resized or zoomed.
• Rendering bugs with RIFT on NVIDIA hardware are fixed.
• Multi-core rendering can now be enabled in Source games.
• Mirror's Edge now runs under CrossOver.
• Bug Fixes:
• Input Managers will no longer cause Windows applications running under CrossOver to crash.
• When you Command-Tab out of a full-screen program and then back, CrossOver will restore that program's display resolution setting.
• CrossOver uses accelerated OpenGL in all cases.
• Added support for Mac-style full-screen windows.
• Enhanced the system tray icon support to handle right-clicks and middle-clicks.
• Fix a bug which could cause CrossOver to display two mouse cursors in some applications.
• Lots of window management fixes.
• Fixed scrolling going diagonal when it shouldn't.
• Fixed certain programs (e.g. Quicken 2013) failing to launch when using certain keyboard layouts (e.g. US International PC).
• Fixed a bug where the select-bottle section of the Software Installer window would say Please Wait forever.
• Improved icon extraction from Windows executables.
• Application Support:
• Project 2010 will run faster.
• Macros function much better in Microsoft Excel.
• Access 2000 user interaction is smoother on OS X.
• The system tray for QQ is functional now on OS X.
• Kayak Foundry will load files again.
• Fixed a crash in the Chinese version of Microsoft Office Home and Student Edition.

What is new in version 12.2.1:

• Updated Chinese translations.

What is new in version 12.2.0:

• Fixed a bug which caused Office 2007 applications to crash in some circumstances.
• Fixed a bug which caused Wizard101 to fail to recover after being re-sized.
• Fixed a bug which caused mailto: links to be broken in Outlook 2003.
• Fixed a bug which caused .Net 4.0 applications to fail to run.
• Fixed a bug which sometimes caused Traditional Chinese to be used even when a user's preferences were set to Simplified Chinese.