CrossOver
Mac Free for Just One Day
by Alan Zisman (c)
2008 First
published in
Low
End Mac 2008.10.28 Mac2Windows
column
When
Apple migrated to the Intel platform, it opened up a lot of
possibilities for Mac users - at least those with Intel-based Macs - to
run Windows programs. Best known are the various ways to run Windows
directly, whether dual-booting using Apple's Boot Camp or using one of
several virtualization programs (all of which I've covered on LEM):
Parallels,
VMWare Fusion, and the free
VirtualBox.
But
there's another way. The WINE project provides Unix-family operating
systems, including Linux and Mac OS X, with the capability to run at
least some Windows applications without having Windows installed. It
works - sometimes - but can take a lot of fussing. CodeWeavers offers a
commercial version of WINE, CrossOver, which makes it much easier to
install and use.
I've written about CrossOver a couple of times on LowEndMac - a
general
review in 2007 and more recently a review when Codeweavers released
a
free version of it customized to allow Google's
Windows-only Chrome browser to run on Macs or Linux.
Now, for one day only, CrossOver has another freebie: On October 28th,
users going to the
company's website
are being promised a code that can be used to download either a Linux
or Mac OS X copy of the $40 CrossOver Pro, complete with a year's
support. (Support can be extended for $35/yr.)
The company claims that the freebie is the result of a
Lame Duck
challenge,
offered three months ago by CodeWeavers' CEO Jeremy White to US
president Bush. In it, he challenged Bush to achieve any of six goals
during the last "lame duck" days of his administration. The goals
ranged from capturing Osama Bin Laden to returning the stock market to
its 2008 high. For each goal met, White promised to give his company's
product away for a day.
One of the challenges was to bring the
average price of gasoline sold in CodeWeavers' home base of Minnesota's
Twin Cities to US$2.79. Falling petroleum prices have done that - the
result: one day of free CrossOver.
Get it while you can.