I recently upgraded to a Mac Studio and I've been pleasantly suprised with the number of apps and plugins that made the transition without major compatibility or licensing issues (notable exceptions: Waves, Melda, Korg Gadget, and lots of older ones, as you might expect). But there are many that work but need help from a certain Windows-access utility program in order to reauthorize, a program I am no longer able to run. I've been using Parallels and Windows 8 for years, and while it can be clunky it works fine. Now however in order to continue I'd need to acquire a new version of both, a considerable investment. KGApp is free but I find it's only intermittently effective. I tried Crossover, and while it mostly works, what they charge for it seems unjustified. especially for a program i might use maybe five times a year - ten bucks a boot. Can anyone suggest an alternative that works with M1/Monterey? or at least a more affordable way to run Crossover?

 

Isn't wine available for mac? Crossover is the dumbed down version of wine, which is free and open source. Check winehq.org

 

wineskin winery

 

Last edited: May 16, 2022

Unfortunately, Wine won't work for Catalina or anything newer

 

I like Wineskin winery but it was last updated more than two years ago, it doesn't support ARM processors or Monterey

 

I'm using wineskin winery also (on Mojave). I do not like Crossover, it is a personal preference in the same way I do not prefer to use LittleSnitch.

Bigger companies always manage to get Payware Utility products like this out fastest when a new platform occurs. And then free utilities begin to emerge. Remember waiting for a new Jailbreak for your iPhone? Like that. They aways figure this stuff out eventually.

I would probably make enough use of Crossover. If I got stuck paying for it, I would make use of it other ways. If there are any.

Otherwise, in your situation; I would probably steal/extend a demo copy and then just delete it after each use if that is your thing. MacOS is great about not leaving tons of residual junk. Maybe some plist. I am not sure what restrictions Crossover has in a Demo mode, if they have one. But you could probably "demo" it a few times a year

 

Thanks Jim Bob, this looks quite promising. I'm getting unpredictable results tho. Downloading and de-quarantining it was no problem, but when i look for available engines i get a massive page of what looks like code, rather than a distinct list. Do I need to have GitHub installed or something?

Never mind, I poked around on GitHub and picked up a bit more context. Anyway it works great! I actually just made Drive D my folder of existing KGs and they all seem to load no problem. Thanks again for clueing me into this. You're right, it's way better than Crossover, and free!

 

Last edited: May 18, 2022

I have another related problem, and here I'm probably betraying a profound ignorance of Windows, but hey. Anyway, when I used Parallels and full Windows, if a KG put a file on the desktop I could find the Windows desktop easily enough, but in WInery the desktop seems to always be an alias of the Mac desktop. That would be great if files were being generated there, but they're not. A KG will say "the license is on the desktop", but I can't find a different desktop. I suspect I have to drill down within the KG itself, but I don't know what tool to use for that. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

What release? Name only, no links please.

 

Noiseash - the KG from anything in the past year or so seems to behave the same way

 

The 3 bundles are only Serial generators by the way. Need Bundle 1.7, Palmary Bundle 1.3, and Ruletec 1.8 do not generate a file at all.

I can look at one separately, but are you sure what you are trying to install is not a part of those releases? I checked the 31102 release and it is still the same kg for the bundles.

 

To run keygens, there is an app called keygen runner(v3 is the last version I found). It's a bit hard to find but works perfectly for keygens. Based on wineskin and free.

 

Last edited by a moderator: May 24, 2022

his problem with that key gen is that it's generating a license file to his virtualized WINE desktop and he can't find it. I've never had that happen. I think the plugins he is trying to install may time bomb too.

 

But he can browse and select mac desktop when generating keyfile.

If you use crossover you can save files to documents folder which directly connects to macos documents folder or you can access C: drive in ~/Library/ and find the file.

 

Wineskin Winery is being updated. It's current with the Crossover engine; you can get cx21.2 engine and it works fine.

All the windows files are on the C drive. You have get in the wrapper using "show contents" . Then it's in Contents->Shared Support-->Prefix. Make an alias to the C drive and put it somewhere accessible, like the sidebar.

brew install --no-quarantine gcenx/wine/unofficial-wineskin

Use that in terminal to install the "un-official" Wineskin release; it's current. Then, download the latest engine, and make a new blank wrapper. Set the app you want to use in the advanced configuration screen (not wine config!), where it has a browse tab; choose the app you use the most, your daw .exe or whatever. You will need to play with settings, but it is way better than Crossover in most ways.

Wineskin is awesome when you update it. To run a KG, though, I download the v4.0.11 winebottler and open with wine in any prefix. It's the only version of Wine I've found that lets you open and run installers and kgs with a prefix selector. Winebottler itself is useless.

 

Last edited: May 24, 2022

I looked and the kg for the Need Preamp and EQ Collection is the one that needs the Machine ID supplied to it.

You have to select the FOLDER, not the file. So just Desktop in your sidebar.

But then, after successfully loaded; it doesn't say anything at all. Close it and Reopen your DAW.

working.

 

Last edited: May 24, 2022

Yes,that's the one. It's weird because after the KG says the license is on the desktop there's nothing visible, not even an invisible file. But you're right, though the plugin instructs you to select the license file itself, selecting the desktop in fact authorizes the plugin - in fact, all the plugins at once. It does actually tell you that, but it's in relatively small writing that's really easy to miss. Thanks clone for the solution, and thanks to everyone for your constructive suggestions.