Home Designer Pro

What works

INSTALLATION (using steps below)

PROGRAM (design, 3D, export plans, build)

Installation Instructions

Put in the first installation disk.

Using your Wine Browser initiate:

[your cd directory]/HD7 PRO 1/Install/setup.exe

(note: using setup.exe in the root directory of the cd won't work...you have to use the one in the Install directory)

Follow all the prompts accepting the default directories until it prompts you to put in installation disk #2.

Using your linux file manager copy all the files on the 2nd installation cdrom to some place on under your ~/.wine/drive_c folder. I used:

~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Chief Architect Inc/Home Designer Pro 7.0

Then tell the installation program to look for the 2nd disk in

c:\Program Files\Chief Architect Inc\Home Designer Pro 7.0\Install

or wherever you put it, adjusting it so it references the wine drive location with Windows syntax with the Install directory that you copied from the cd.

Finish installing.

Now you are going to fix the program so it doesn't bring up the tutorial files on startup because that will hang it.

In terminal initiate the Windows registry editor, using wine:

wine regedit

Change the registry entry for
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\A.R.T.\Home Designer Pro\7.0 \Show Help At Startup
from 01 00 00 00 to all zeros.

You need a password protected version which you can get by contacting Home Designer Pro Tech Support and asking for your dongle-protected version to be changed to a password version. They'll give you a new reg# + password which you type into the regstration screens on program startup.

What does not

Installation (unless use the work around above)

help/tutorial (hangs)

Clicking on the icons in the lower left corner (next, icon of a door for open, X for delete etc) will instantly crash the program. You'll have to use their alternatives from the EDIT menu or by right clicking to bring up the context menu.

The Render View Tool (blue camera) works but the menu disappears. It's still there but not showing. If you click your mouse where the menu items SHOULD be, they'll reappear as you click them.

copy protection dongle - you need to ask them for a password after you buy it. Warning - it will only work on ONE computer with the password version.

Workarounds

What was not tested

help
pre-made plans
printing (but exporting worked fine since I don't print from my linux machine)

Hardware tested

Graphics:

• GPU:
• Driver:

Additional Comments

Save your plans frequently. It is workable enough for me to do paid work with Home Designer Pro under Linux.