Since we talked about running Windows apps on the Mac yesterday, here’s a piece of news I missed — CodeWeavers last week announced the first beta release of CrossOver 7, the next version of its tool to run Windows apps on the Mac…without Windows.
CrossOver 7 includes an up-to-the-minute version of Wine which means greatly expanded application support. Newly supported applications include Photoshop CS and many of the programs within MS Office 2007. There are many additional features and functions which should greatly improve unsupported application behavior as well.
The advantage of CrossOver over apps like Parallels or Fusion is the ability to run Windows programs without having to run Windows itself in a separate environment. There are many compatible programs that work near-flawlessly — and many that aren’t listed that work just as well.
This beta represents a comforting sign that this form of pseudo-virtualization is still making strides, despite the public’s seeming lack of recognition of its benefits. That’s why I keep writing about CrossOver — when it works, it works great, and is a very ideal alternative to running basic Windows apps without the hassle of launching another OS and the resource requirements of running two at the same time. (Plus, you eliminate the overhead of Windows itself, in terms of stability and performance.)
Check after the bump for a more detailed changelog, and hit up CodeWeaver’s site to get some more details about CrossOver. Give it a try — who knows, it might fill That One Need you didn’t know you…needed. Or something.
* CrossOver 7.0.0beta1 - 2008/05/01New application support:
Office 2007 (Including Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and limited Outlook) Photoshop CS and CS2Bug fixes:
Greatly improved online banking integration in Quicken 2007 and 2008
Fixed service pack support for several versions of Office
Improved IE support in win2000 and winxp bottles (though win98 is still better)
Improved support for modern Linux distributions (especially Ubuntu)This build also includes countless wine fixes. Many small bugs should be fixed, and unsupported application behavior should be greatly improved.
