Is it possible to install PT8 on a MacBook Air using WineBottler?

Question

This is really two questions:

• Is it possible to install PT8 in a MacBook Air ? If not what type of Mac computers are acceptable?
• Is it possible to install PT8 using WineBottler 'Windows Emulation software? All the successful Mac installs I am aware of use Parallels and require purchasing that software along with a Windows license. Is there any less costly solution?

I am not a Mac user so I do not know very much about Mac hardware, OSX, and Windows emulation software. Any other pertinent advice to Mac users who want to run PT would be welcome.

Answer 1

I think any Mac model will be able to set up a virtual machine.

I think WineBottler won’t work for Paratext, since Paratext relies heavily on .NET software and that is the hard thing for Wine type emulators to enable. I’ve heard of Wine enabling TW Folio and Donor Manager but not Paratext.

The free option to have Paratext on a Mac is to download VirtualBox software for setting up virtual machines and download Ubuntu Linux or Wasta Linux to install the Linux version of Paratext. VirtualBox and Linux are free downloads.

If one needs Windows instead of Linux, you can still use VirtualBox for setting up the virtual Windows machine and save oneself the cost of purchasing Parallels. You’d still have to purchase the Windows license and install media. Parallels has some extra features that VirtualBox won’t have, such as being able to tell your Mac to open a certain file type directly in a Windows application. But that is not something that helps for Paratext, because you don’t double click on files to open a Paratext project.

Comments

You don't need Wine if you have Ubuntu 16.04/Wasta/Mint running on a Mac under VirtualBox.

Paratext 7-8, Fieldworks and other SIL programs run natively in Linux/Ubuntu/Wasta (which is Ubuntu with SIL program sources enabled and language-specific software pre-installed.

KimB :)

Answer 2

For a number of years, I’ve run Ptext, TW, FLEx and pretty much any other Windows software I’ve wanted using Parallels on my Mac Mini. Parallels is not free, but it’s money well spent. I’ve tried Virtual Box and VMWare (on Linux, admittedly), and I find Parallels on Mac is easier to use and needs less maintenance.

Of course, you have to own a Windows license to install Windows under Parallels, which may be a deal-breaker.

Parallels offers an upgrade every year, but I usually skip those unless needed for compatibility with the current release Mac OS X.

Comments

I'm not sure about the maintenance aspect of VirtualBox on a Mac, because I'm not a Mac user either. But I have successfully helped several people install VirtualBox on Macs and get Wasta 16.04 going. It is perhaps easier with recent versions of VB than it used to be.

Of course you can install Wasta in either VB or Parallels.

KimB

Answer 3

I have installed PT8 on both a MacBook Air and MacBook Pro using VirtualBox and a Windows 10 ISO that I downloaded from Microsoft’s website (i.e. legit, not pirated):
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

You can use this Windows 10 ISO without paying/registering indefinitely, as far as I can tell. There are some feature limitations on an unregistered Windows 10 (e.g. can’t customize my desktop or user profile pic) but, so far, we’ve had no issues that inhibited PT8 function related to having this unregistered W10 version.

Comments

The page at the web address mentioned in the previous post does seem to state that you need to have a license to install Windows 10.

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Regardless of what the site says, I was able to install it without a license, which I’m pretty sure our tech guy, Paul (@pafederwitz) had told me would be possible when we were prepping for the PT8 training last October. During the VirtualBox installation process, I was given the option to install either with a key (i.e. having a license) or without a key. Not having a license, I chose the “without a key” route. Now, when I use W10 in VB, there is a little hovering box in the bottom right corner of the screen that prompts me to click there to activate, which I can only do if I purchase a license. But since it works fine for running PT8 without a license, I haven’t done so.

Answer 4

If having a license is not technically enforced, it could still be a requirement in a legal sense.