HOWTO: Chess Tactics for Beginners and Wine

by Tuirgin on Apr.04, 2009, under Chess

ChessOK has a long-running sales special where they offer an additional training software package (≤$25) if you buy 2 other training titles. They let me substitute ChessOK Aquarium Basic for the free training title. Aquarium has some great features for diagrams and documentation, as well as their new analysis features. I recently received my copy of Chess Tactics for Beginners from ChessOK. It runs just fine on native windows installs (including Vista x64 if you disable UAC—and please don’t comment about the dangers of disabling UAC: I don’t use Windows for its <sarcasm>magnificent</sarcasm> security features) and virtualized windows, but I want to run it in Wine since my primary operating system is OS X. The problem is that most users find that when they install it in Wine they get a 501 error with the explanation Cannot change Visible in OnShow or OnHide. This is a result of the title’s copy protection. It requires that the CD from which the program was installed be in the same drive from which it was installed. If you are actually using a CD, you’re fine, but if you purchase the download version and just mount the ISO you’re directed to make rather than burning it, you can run into some problems. It seems by default Wine treats a mounted ISO image as just another folder on the file system. But remember that Chess Tactics for Beginners is looking for an optical drive with the installer disc, and not only that, it’s looking for the disc to be in the same optical drive from which it was originally installed. Luckily there is a simple solution. Run winecfg and go to the Drives tab. Add a drive, and make sure to remember which drive letter you use since you’ll need to use the same drive letter for installation and for running the software. Once you add a drive you can browse out to the mounted ISO folder and set your path to it. [Ex. On OS X I'm using /Volume/ChessTacticsforBeginners set to drive D:] The next step is the one that makes it all work—click on Show Advanced and change the Type field to CD-ROM. Now you can install the software in wine whichever way you prefer, and when you’re ready to run the software, just make sure that you have mounted the ISO to the same path you used when you installed it.

I realize this is a bit on the geeky side and may throw some users for a loop. If you’re having problems following my instructions, just contact me and I’ll see what I can do to help.

:*nix, chess software, HOWTO, wine

6 Comments for this entry

cheesx
April 6th, 2009 on 12:06 am
You will learn a lot from chess tactics for beginners. Its layout is very good.

Reply
- Tuirgin
  April 6th, 2009 on 5:01 am
  I’m liking it so far. And unlike a lot of puzzles they are easy enough that it leaves me feeling halfway intelligent.
  
  Reply
chessx
April 6th, 2009 on 10:29 am
I have now added you to my blog list,i thought i had already done it but no. Keep up the good work.

Reply
- Tuirgin
  April 6th, 2009 on 10:33 am
  Thanks! I’m rather surprised at all the interest people have showed in my little blog. Maybe it comes from years of talking about art, literature, and religion. Chess, by contrast, seems a lot more popular
  
  Reply
owen
June 10th, 2010 on 11:01 pm
Hi, I just bought chess tactics for beginners and I can’t even get it to run on my windows 7 computer. I’ve looked all over online and tried different things (installing it in different locations and turning off the UAC running as admin.) nothing seams to work. The program comes up but anything I try to use brings up this “access violation…” error. If you have any thoughts I would be most grateful. I am eager to try it out (if I can get it to work). Thank you very much.

Reply
- Tuirgin
  June 10th, 2010 on 11:19 pm
  If you bought the standalone software from ChessOK, you might want to talk to them about a refund/exchange and buy the Peshk@ version. If not, I’d still suggest talking to their technical support. I’ve always found them helpful.
  
  Reply