Run Windows Apps On Mac High Sierra
Recent developments in virtualization, emulation and techniques that allow running of applications developed for “foreign” platforms as if they were native ones, have made it relatively easy, and often free, to use the same app in mixed environments.
Steps to recreate the issue on a mid-2013 MBA running macOS 10.13 with primary macOS volume formatted as APFS and Bootcamp partition running Windows 10 formatted as NTFS: 1. Boot into Windows in the Mac's Bootcamp partition. From the Windows Bootcamp utility menu, choose 'Restart in OS X.' If prompted, choose OK to verify. Easily Change Default Apps in macOS Sierra. With these methods, you can easily change the default apps on Mac to any third party app that you prefer using. Changing default apps in macOS Sierra can help you automatically open files, and documents in the app of your choice. There are a number of third party apps for Mac, that are very powerful. In macOS High Sierra and earlier, you can install Windows 10, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7 using Boot Camp Assistant on supported Mac models. Information about products not manufactured by Apple, or independent websites not controlled or tested by Apple, is provided without recommendation or endorsement. The macOS High Sierra is the newer version of Apple’s operating system which is still vastly used and loved by users. MacOS High Sierra was launched and put out back in 2017 WWDC. But even with the newer versions, there are still lots of users who wants to install High Sierra.
This post takes a closer look on one of this techniques, namely Wine (acronym for “Wine Is Not an Emulator”), that allows running native Windows software on POSIX-compliant operating systems, such as Linux, macOS, & BSD, without need for a Windows license.
![Run Windows Apps On Mac High Sierra Run Windows Apps On Mac High Sierra](https://images.idgesg.net/images/article/2017/09/app-store-high-sierra-100736897-large.jpg)
Here we install the game on macOS Sierra / High Sierra (the screenshots are from Sierra).
- First you need to allow your system to install apps from “App Store and identified developers” (or possibly “Anyone”, depending on what else needs to be installed other than XQuartz and Wine). Earlier macOS versions let you alter the default setting (that allows apps only from the App Store) by setting the Gatekeeper option under System Preferences > Security & Privacy > General, but High Sierra hides the other two options and you need to enable them by opening the Terminal (in Finder, click Go > Utilities and open Terminal), and type the following (you need to enter your user password to be able to change the setting):
- After this you can go and change the Gatekeeper setting.
- Go to https://www.winehq.org and read the introductory text, if you are not familiar with the concept of Wine, then go to https://wiki.winehq.org/MacOS to read installation instructions specific to macOS.
- You first need to have XQuartz 2.7.7. (or later) installed. Visit https://www.xquartz.org to download it. Click the .pkg file in Downloads to mount the installer, then launch it to go through the installation.
- After having installed XQuartz, download Wine at https://dl.winehq.org/wine-builds/macosx/download.html (version 2.21 “Wine Staging” is a good choice):
- Download the .pkg file, click it in Downloads to mount the installer, then launch it to start the installation. During the installation, you may be interrupted by prompts to install support for Mono (for .NET applications) and Gecko (for apps that use HTML internally). Accept to install these support packages.
- After the installation is complete, you can go to http://www.4windsmj.com/downloads01.htm and download the latest version of Four Winds Mah Jong. Once downloaded, click the executable setup package (normally 4W2Full24.exe) in Downloads. It will automatically be launched in Wine and installed in correct location. A Windows shortcut is placed on the desktop, but it naturally does not work. You need to replace it with a Mac alias.
- Open your Home folder (in Finder, click Go > Home or press Cmd+Shift+H). Now make hidden files and folders visible by pressing Cmd+Shift+. (dot). This shows the hidden .wine folder where your Windows environment is installed:
- Double click the .wine folder and open folders until you have 4Winds2 folder open (the folder path relative to .wine is, as shown in the image below: drive_c > Program Files > 4Winds2:
- Here, click with the secondary mouse button on 4Winds2.exe to create an alias, then drag and drop it on your desktop.
- Launch Four Winds by double clicking the alias.
- Once launched, go to File > Preferences, and under User Interface > General option page (accessed by the category tree on the left), disable color management by clearing the check mark from the Use color management option:
You may also need to Bypass DirectX sound (under the same option page), and choose a MIDI file (on the Themes option page) for the “Background” and “Win of the game” music, or set their values to “none”. (the default music comes as .mp3 files which require DirectX). If you do not change the sound settings, you can turn off background music from the Options menu so that an unsupported feature is not used.
- If you have a one-button mouse, click the Game Controls button, then change the mouse control setting for discarding from “Right click on raised tile” to “Click on raised tile”. On the same dialog box, you may need to uncheck Use custom cursors (with recent Wine builds, animated and custom cursors seem to be working fine, but if the game suddenly freezes, one possible cause is the use of custom mouse cursors).
- Close the Preferences dialog box and click Help > Register to enter your registration name and number. Then choose Game > New Game to start a new game with preferred rules.
- You may want to test with different game boards by using the options under the View > Game boards sub menu to find the board size and layout that works best on your screen. Note that the quality of graphics is mediocre compared to the original but looks slightly better on boards that have not been scaled. If you choose a 24-bit theme, scaling has a better quality: e.g., for the default graphics, choose File > Preferences, then under User Interface > Themes, choose “Four Winds (24-bit)”.
And there you are, running Four Winds Mah Jong on your Mac, without needing a Windows license. The quality is not as good as when using VMWare or VirtualBox (both free), or Parallels Desktop, not to mention running the game on real Windows on a BootCamp partition, but at least you can now play proper Mahjong with multitude of rule options offline on your Mac.
A screenshot of Four Winds 2.18 running on macOS Mojave using the latest Wine (4.2 Staging) and XQuartz 2.7.11.
The quality of graphics has improved with latest versions and scaled boards work well.
Running Four Winds on Linux
The procedure is basically the same as on macOS, though installation happens from within the Terminal. WineHQ has instructions for installing Wine on several different Linux systems. Below is a screenshot of Four Winds running on Ubuntu 16.04 using Wine 3.0.
Apple began transitioning to 64-bit hardware and software technology for Mac over a decade ago, and all modern Macs now include powerful 64-bit processors that can run advanced 64-bit apps. These apps can access dramatically more memory, enable faster system performance, and take advantage of technologies that define today's Mac experience, such as Metal graphics acceleration.
Apple has been working with developers to transition their apps, and in 2018 Apple informed them that macOS Mojave would be the last version of macOS to run 32-bit apps.
Apple's transition to 64-bit technology is now complete. Starting with macOS Catalina, 32-bit apps are no longer compatible with macOS. If you have a 32-bit app, please check with the app developer for a 64-bit version.
Opening 32-bit apps
When you attempt to open a 32-bit app, you will see an alert that the app needs to be updated to work with this version of macOS, or that the app is not optimized for your Mac and needs to be updated.
macOS Catalina
macOS Mojave and macOS High Sierra
If you haven't upgraded to macOS Catalina, you can still open and use the app, but you should check with the app developer for a 64-bit version that also works with the latest macOS.
How to find 32-bit apps on your Mac
System Information can find 32-bit apps that are installed on your Mac:
- Choose Apple menu > About This Mac, then click the System Report button.
- Select Legacy Software in the sidebar. All legacy software is 32-bit.
- If you don't see Legacy Software in the sidebar, select Applications in the sidebar, then check the list of apps on the right. The column labeled ”64-Bit (Intel)” shows ”No” for apps that are 32-bit.
When upgrading to macOS Catalina, the installer shows a list of recently used apps that are 32-bit. You can review this list before choosing whether to cancel or continue the installation:
macOS Catalina also shows a prohibitory symbol over the icon of each 32-bit app in the Finder, letting you know that the app will not open.
How to contact the app developer
The developer (or vendor) is the person or company that made the app. The easiest way to find contact information for an app's developer is to search the web for their name or the name of their app. Learn more about contacting third-party vendors.
MacOS High Sierra install problemsIf you’re having problems installing macOS High Sierra, first make sure you check out our guide, which will take you through the steps you need to take to safely install the new operating system.If the macOS High Sierra download completes, but there’s no prompt for the installation to continue, then search in your Mac’s application folder for a file called 'Install macOS 10.13'. You can also try Shift + Option + Command + R.If your Mac continues to fail to boot, follow Apple’s instructions on.It may be worth restarting your Mac in Safe Mode, then trying to install macOS 10.13 High Sierra from there to fix the problem. You may be able to restart the download from there.Finally, try logging out of the Store to see if that restarts the download. Select ‘Disk boot’ to boot normally, then remove any files you no longer need.If you’re struggling to free up disk space, look out for hidden Time Machine files that may be taking up large amounts of space.Once you have freed up enough space, retry the installation.If macOS High Sierra encounters a problem at the end of installation, and then shows an error message, restart your Mac and press Command + Option + R on your keyboard while the Mac boots to start up the recovery system over the Internet. /mac-high-sierra-open-with-app-list-cache.html. Double-click the file to begin installation.You also need to make sure that there is enough hard drive space on your Mac, otherwise the macOS High Sierra install will fail.To fix the macOS High Sierra problem where the installation fails due to low disk space, restart your Mac and press CTL + R while it’s booting to enter the Recover menu.
To find the name of the developer:
Mac High Sierra
- Select the app in the Finder.
- Choose File > Get Info from the menu bar.
- Look for copyright information in the Info window. For example, Apple is the developer of this app: