Family Tree Maker 16 Forum

I installed Family Tree Maker (FTM 13.0.281 this is the same version that when updated goes to 16.0 as part of that update - however when I update within CrossOver it is says it already is up to date) . I was able to get it running and stable (so far) by installing it into a Windows 98 bottle, rather than an XP etc.). I did run into one hitch: When you install it will say "needs Internet Explorer to work" (or something like that) do you want to install - say yes.... etc. The installer completes. But it doesn't LOOK like internet explorer is actually installed and FTM will then fail to install itself. So...

First we need to make internet explorer show up:

So on the "Manage Bottles" windows click the "Advanced" tab at the top. Then open the C: drive to view the drives installed files, and you'll navigate into the folder which actually DOES contain the installed Internet Explorer. You'll find this at:

YourHomeFolder/Library/Application Support/CrossOver/Bottles/YourDriveName i.e. Win98/drive_c/Program Files/Internet Explorer

NOTE: In Mac OS 10.7 Lion you can't see this because Library is now, by default, hidden - press Command+Shift+G (for Go) and enter ~/Library to make it appear - then make an alias of the Library folder (Command +L) and it will now appear in all dialogue boxes.

Right-click and "Open With..." and select CrossOver. This should launch internet explorer. NOW go ahead and install FTM.
That should work now

One more glitch that was bug in FTM 13.0 in Win 98 that was solved in WinME and WinXP was the appearance of an error for a missing dll file: ole2nls.dll. So I just downloaded it and installed it (copied it over, using the same above link path) into the Windows OS appropriate folder:

YourHomeFolder/Library/Application Support/CrossOver/Bottles/YourDriveName i.e. Win98/drive_c/windows/system

(and I put it into /system32 as well)

So far so good - I have 44,000 names in my file and I pushed it around making it do intensive things (search for all matching names for example, exported large file, exported to gedcom, etc.) and it appears to be holding together OK. So it might be that it needs the simpler OS and it in turn needs a couple of tweaks to get off the ground.

I'd like to test my working theory but we need people to try it and say how we fared! Thanks all for your input!

edit: unfortunately I've had to remove the link here ; ole2nls.dll is a
Microsoft system file, and we cannot link to an external download of this
library (unless it comes from the Microsoft Download Center) - Don