I am trying to run a windows program (a dictionary called Le Petit Larousse 2005) under Ubuntu (Ubuntu is an ancient african word meaning "I could not handle Slackware"). I have tried three approaches, but I hit loggerheads on all of them and i need some help.
1. I have a qemu virtual machine with WinXP loaded on it. This seems the most promising approach. The problem is, i cannot get past the disk's anti-piracy protection. Namely, it lets me install everything just fine, but when i enter the disk key it replies that the key does not match the disk (it works under windows without emulation, by the way). I think that this has something to do with the way qemu builds the emulated CD drive and passes it to windows; the emulated CD drive makes the disk look like a copy to the program. I have messed with this a little bit, but since everything appears to be working to qemu the problem has no log file. I tried making an iso image of the original cd and mounting that as the CDROM, but that did not even load, and i think it would take me back to the original problem anyway. I tried copying the successfully installed file from windows into the emulator image, but the copy protection must reside somewhere else because it brought back the same error. The only other thing i could think of was to excute qemu with root privleges (bad idea i know but it supposedly gives the emulator more hardware visibility). Does anyone know how to:
a. Execute Qemu so that the nested OS can read the device directly rather than through the emulator?, or
b. get around the disk's copy protection? It uses something called protect.dll (aIso by the way, I legally own the original licensed disks for both XP and LP2005... i don't want pirate anything here, just use what i already own)
2. Linux alternatives: dictd is exactly the kind of framework i am looking for, but i can not find any decent english-french dictionary databases for it (or german-english or german-french for that matter). If anybody can tell me where to find decent dictionary databases, i would love to scrap the whole windows thing. google has not been helpful. i am willing to pay for them. The freedict database won't cut it, by the way... it is a good basic start but my wife is a professional translator and needs something more robust.
3. WINE (WINE is a recursive acronym for Wine Is a Nasty freakin hEadache). I have worked on this for many many hours but i am too stupid to configure wine to do anything practical. Can't install the program in question or run the successfully installed copy on my windows partition. If anybody knows where to find an install/configure/use guide for the complete moron (i am not really a noob anymore just stupid) i would appreciate it.
To anybody who is still reading my little tirade, thank you.
