The “Break it Down” Blog

I would say in 99% of the cases people would want to do this for testing a website if they are exclusively a Linux user, this is certainly the position I’m in.

I knew I needed Wine and being on Ubuntu that was as easy as using Synaptic to download and install it. I would mention that you probably want to add the WineHQ custom Ubuntu repository for Wine which will provide you with the most recent Wine builds, you can do that by adding the repository:

http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt dapper main

After doing that, don’t forget to hit Reload to re-read all the repository information, you should then search for Wine and see the newest version (at the time of this writing is it version 0.9.20):

Then you need to go to the IEs 4 Linux page in order to grab the IEs 4 Linux script, which will download and install IE versions 5.0, 5.5 and 6.0 if you want (by default just version 6.0) and create desktop shortcuts for you. This script is an absolute must as it downloads quite a long list of packages from Microsoft and installs them all for you (including Flash so you are all ready to go). A full list of the files downloaded, as far as I can tell from the /lib/download.sh script is as follows:

• IE 6 Cab Files:

• ADVAUTH
• CRLUPD
• HHUPD
• IEDOM
• IE_S1
• IE_S2
• IE_S5
• IE_S4
• IE_S3
• IE_S6
• SCR56EN
• SETUPW95
• FONTCORE
• FONTSUP
• VGX

To boot, it then installs all this stuff correctly under the default directory of ~/.ies4linux and creates the Wine prefixes for it all.

NOTE: If your install happens to stop at “Creating Wine Prefix” and just hang there, check out this thread. The fix seems to be:

1) Open lib/install.sh

2) Go to line 16

3) Change this code:
wineprefixcreate &> /dev/null || {
wineprefixcreate
error $MSG_ERROR_NO_WINEPREFIXCREATE
}

to this code:
wineprefixcreate

4) Run ies4linux again

What happened for me then is that the script stopped at “fixme:ole:ITypeInfo_fnRelease destroy child objects“. After hitting CTLR-C, the script continued on to uncompressing the CAB files and installing them.

Then the install froze at “Installing flash on ie6” again, so I hit CTRL-C again and the script exited, but I now had an IE icon on my desktop:

I double clicked the link and IE sure enough popped up:

The only downside seemed to be that it was completely locked up. It wouldn’t repaint, I couldn’t click anything… completely frozen. So I closed it and did a Force Quit on it, then tried again. It froze again. I think the problem is related to this thread that IE is infact freezing on launch.

So this time I launched it from the terminal and got:

rkalla@rkalla-desktop:~/Desktop$ ~/bin/ie6
fixme:actctx:CreateActCtxW 0×33fa70 00000008
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33f838
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
fixme:actctx:CreateActCtxW 0×33f754 00000008
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33f51c
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
err:shell:ReadCabinetState Initializing shell cabinet settings
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx (nil) 0×33ed9c
fixme:actctx:CreateActCtxW 0×33d2e0 00000008
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33d0a8
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33dca8
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
err:rebar:REBAR_WindowProc unknown msg 200b wp=00000000 lp=71180f00
fixme:actctx:CreateActCtxW 0×33d184 00000008
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33cf4c
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33dc00
fixme:toolbar:TOOLBAR_CheckStyle [0x10034] TBSTYLE_REGISTERDROP not implemented
fixme:toolbar:TOOLBAR_CheckStyle [0x10034] TBSTYLE_REGISTERDROP not implemented
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
fixme:shell:NTSHChangeNotifyRegister (0×10034,0×00008003,0×00008000,0×0000c072,0×00000001,0×33dc10): semi stub.
fixme:toolbar:TOOLBAR_Unkwn45D hwnd=0×10034, wParam=0×00000000, size.cx=3520, size.cy=32000 stub!
fixme:toolbar:TOOLBAR_CheckStyle [0x10034] TBSTYLE_REGISTERDROP not implemented
fixme:toolbar:TOOLBAR_CheckStyle [0x10034] TBSTYLE_REGISTERDROP not implemented
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33dce8
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
fixme:toolbar:TOOLBAR_Unkwn464 hwnd=0×10038 wParam 00000001 lParam 00000000
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33dc5c
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33dc34
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33dbe8
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33cf30
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33cf30
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33cf30
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33dc18
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
fixme:toolbar:TOOLBAR_Unkwn45D hwnd=0×10052, wParam=0×00000000, size.cx=3520, size.cy=1196 stub!
fixme:shell:NTSHChangeNotifyRegister (0×10052,0×00008003,0×0c02b7ff,0×0000c072,0×00000001,0×33dc50): semi stub.
err:rebar:REBAR_Layout no redraw and client is zero, skip layout
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33ddac
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
fixme:actctx:CreateActCtxW 0×33b588 00000008
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33b350
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
fixme:actctx:CreateActCtxW 0×33a550 00000008
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33a318
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33b738
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
fixme:actctx:CreateActCtxW 0×33922c 00000008
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×338ff4
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad
fixme:shell:NTSHChangeNotifyRegister (0×10028,0×00008003,0×0003f5f4,0×00000410,0×00000001,0×33ea88): semi stub.
fixme:shell:SignalFileOpen (0×00000000):stub.
fixme:actctx:CreateActCtxW 0×33a808 00000008
fixme:actctx:ActivateActCtx 0xf00baa 0×33a5d0
fixme:actctx:DeactivateActCtx 00000000 00f00bad

Then as I left the terminal open and IE running, every 60 seconds or so this line would popup:

err:ntdll:RtlpWaitForCriticalSection section 0×7effcce4 “loader.c: loader_section” wait timed out in thread 000f, blocked by 0009, retrying (60 sec)

Then after 2 minutes IE closed it self with the following message:

err:seh:raise_exception Unhandled exception code c0000194 flags 0 addr 0×7efb0030

After trying a myriad of different things and reading more on the IEs 4 Linux forum as well as searching Ubuntu Forums I finally gave up, removed Wine, removed the custom Wine repository, updated and rolled back to the outdated 0.9.9 release from the default Dapper Universe repository. After I reinstalled that version of Wine, I erased all of my ~/.wine* and ~/.ies4Linux directories and simply typed wine in the console and viola, it seemed to work!

rkalla@rkalla-desktop:~$ wine
wine: creating configuration directory ‘/home/rkalla/.wine’…
wine: ‘/home/rkalla/.wine’ created successfully.
Wine 0.9.9
Usage: wine PROGRAM [ARGUMENTS...] Run the specified program
wine –help Display this help and exit
wine –version Output version information and exit

I then re-ran the ies4Linux script, everything redownloaded (because I had erased the ~/.ies4Linux directory) and then began to install. Again the script froze at the “Installing flash on ie6” stage so I just CTRL-C‘ed it. So the installation continued and finished successfully.

I then double clicked my desktop shortcut again and IE popped up and then promptly froze. At this point, to make sure there wasn’t a problem with the moon or stars being aligned, I decided to reboot… hey, it fixes Windows sometimes

IT WORKED

Ok aparently rebooting helps Linux too… fantastic. Well I rebooted, got back into my desktop, launched IE and at first it locked up like usual for about 5 seconds, then it seemed to refresh/reload and bring up the Windows Update site, then popup ActiveX windows asking me to OK them. I cancelled them and it seemed extremely sluggish then loosened up. I visited a few sites and it seems to be working just fine:

So what’s the lesson-learned here that I have to bestow upon you? Don’t forget to reboot (Digg this)