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Import old install from .cxgames directory?

I used to be able to put bottles in a .cxgames directory and then import them into a new install of Crossover Office on a different computer. This is quite handy when switching to a new laptop (or other new install) as it (among other things) rebuilds shortcuts/symlinks so that they work on the new system. If I just drop my old .cxoffice directory in my new home directory, it doesn't have working links.

While setting up my latest laptop I can't find a way to trigger the import. Does anyone know if the old Crossover Games import feature is available, and if so how to activate it manually? I'm fine with deleting whatever I need to in my new home directory to trick Crossover into thinking it's running the first time, if that's the solution.

Note: I know you can use the archive feature, but I don't have enough space to archive all my installed programs on my old laptop while also keeping the bottles on the system. The nice thing about using .cxgames is that it imports rather than making a duplicate archive, so it uses half the space.

The code still exists in CrossOver, but it's no longer accessible from the GUI. It uses command-line tools to do most of the work, so it should be possible to do the same thing manually.

Here are the steps the GUI takes:

  1. Check whether the original bottle is running, and if so shut it down.
  2. If "Move" was selected, uninstall the original bottle by running: cxgames/bin/cxbottle --bottle bottlename --removeall
  3. Copy or move the bottle directory from ~/.cxgames to ~/.cxoffice (depending on whether "Copy" or "Move" was selected), equivalent to a 'cp -r' or 'mv' in terminal.
  4. On Mac only, look for files in the bottle named desktopdata/cxmenu_macosx.plist and desktopdata/cxassoc_macosx.plist, and delete them if they exist.
  5. Set the "Menu Root" option in cxmenu.conf to "/Windows Applications".
  6. Run: cxoffice/bin/cxbottle --bottle bottlename --restored --install

For your use case, it may be enough to restore your old .cxoffice directory and run that last step for all of your bottles.

Thanks for this response, I'll test it out!

Please don't ever remove this feature as it can't possibly take much space and is very very useful as explained above. Limiting it to command-line only is fine as long as it doesn't disappear entirely.

This worked - sort of.

I copied over my old .cxoffice directory to my new computer, making sure to preserve permissions/ownership and to copy all symlinks (used rsync).

I then ran "/opt/cxoffice/bin/cxbottle --bottle bottlename --restored --install" on each bottle.

I verified each restore created the proper shortcuts in my applications menu and I removed all desktop shortcuts it created.

Pros: I was able to run a few programs without issue including: Bannersaga (on Steam), the Star Wars Galaxies Emulator, and Guild Wars 2. Vampire Bloodlines had issues running but it had those same issues on my old computer :D.

Cons: Several other programs in their own bottles didn't work, including Quicken 2014. I now need to figure out what to do to get each bottle working. I also didn't get any shortcuts in the Applications menu for Vampire Bloodlines.

So I'd call it a partial success :D.

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