Creative Writer

What works

Most of the program, but it requires a few hacks. After installing but before running the program:

1. Copy CWWEB.DLL and SKYHOOK.DLL from C:/Program Files/Microsoft Kids/Creative Writer/System to C:/Program Files/Microsoft Kids/Creative Writer (needed to make the program start)
2. Run winetricks dcom98 (needed for saving and opening files and some image-related functions)

You may want to do this in a different wineprefix, since dcom98 can break other apps.

What does not

• The Microsoft logo at startup - instead, the program starts with a message saying it was unable to load some artwork.
• The "paint" function (inserting a picture from Paint It!)
• The program icon in the title bar and taskbar
• Uninstallation
• The open/save dialogs are displayed incorrectly (but still usable)
• The program is slow to respond after hovering over objects in the toolbar

Workarounds

What was not tested

Some of the text/page options.

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

The program is much more responsive when using the DIB engine from bug 421. This also improves the display of the open/save dialogs as an added bonus. You'll have to patch and compile the Wine source code yourself to use it, however.