Launchpad Enhanced

I've fought for several days trying to get Launchpad Enhanced to work correctly.

A patched install of wine 1.0.1 with Erich Hoover's ContextQuery patch and the GDI hack patches will allow an initial install and one-time run of Launchpad Enhanced. Subsequent attempts to start LPE result in crashes (error in GdipCreateFontFromLogfontW). Installation and overrides of native gdiplus do not seem to make a difference.

Newer versions of Wine also crash using gdiplus override.

Using just the stub patches for Erich's GDI hacking result in the endless loop bug trying to update that he posted earlier.

Is there anything I'm missing on how to get LPE to work reliably?

Also, the howto listed does not seem to adequately reflect the status with current wine versions. Following the howto results in a crash every time (.net errors).

Sorry it has taken me so long to respond to this. I do not believe I ever got a full set of GDI stubs in to get LPE working - after getting part way I had other responsibilities tear me away. A native gdiplus has always worked for me for getting LPE to run. While I normally have other over-rides as well, the gdiplus one is the only one that is necessary to get LPE working (I just checked this again). In case it is relevant to your issue, I run Wine in Windows XP mode and the md5sum for my gdiplus.dll is:
871c903a90c45ca08a9d42803916c3f7

I've noticed that LPE no-longer properly recognizes that it is updated and this is why it won't let you play, just re-run the "Full Scan" at the bottom and then it will allow you to launch the game. I'm not sure whether this is due to a change in LPE or Wine, but it unfortunately means that you must re-run the "Full Scan" every time you start LPE.

I have never been able to get LPE to work with native gdiplus.

I created a new WINEPREFIX and copied over the gdiplus.dll that matches your md5sum. I set it to native using winecfg. I installed dotnet20 using winetricks and corefonts. Installation of LPE works fine, however running LPE results in a popup from LPE that states, "Big ass error: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt."

Clicking ok invokes .net error reporting with the following result:

Unhandled Exception: System.AccessViolationException: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.
at System.Drawing.SafeNativeMethods.Gdip.GdipCreateFontFromLogfontW(HandleRef hdc, Object lf, IntPtr& font)
(more debug continues ... removed)

As a side note, .net 2.0 installation actually installs its own version of gdiplus that is slightly older than the one you use. I have tried using that version as well as deleting it and using the version matching your md5sum. It doesn't make a difference, the result is always as I described.

This occurs with both wine 1.0.1 and 1.1.21.

The only thing I can figure is that there must be either another override I need to use, or there is something different about our .net installs.

> "Big ass error: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt."

I have not seen this error with LPE but I have previously seen errors like it somewhere else - are you using a 64-bit processor?

> The only thing I can figure is that there must be either another override I need to use, or there is something different about our .net installs.

I disabled all my other over-rides the other day to check and did not have this problem, I could try to do a new .NET install though. Could you send me the link to the .NET 2.0 you installed?

I'm running Ubuntu Jaunty x86_64. Wine is running using the 32-bit compatibility libraries.

Dotnet20 was installed using the winetricks script from www.kegel.com/wine/winetricks

That's the way to do it, the issue that I remember is that some 32-bit libraries/applications will attempt to use memory in an area that is reserved on x86-64. Please try launching like this:
linux32 ~flags~ wine LaunchpadEnhanced.exe

If I remember correctly, then "~flags~" should be something like "-BLR". If that doesn't work then running "man linux32" should give you hints on what flags to use.