Script to Install Vector NTI 10 with Wine

**misha680** · January 27th, 2007

These instructions have been updated for wine 0.9.37 and higher. The old scripts are still available for 0.9.33 and 0.9.29 and later but are not recommended.

Vector NTI 10 is the gold standard product available free of charge to researchers in the molecular biology community for designing and manipulating DNA and protein sequences. For more information, please see the Vector NTI Community.

The following instructions are designed to get the optimal installation experience (with all menus, etc.). If they are too complicated, you can just do step 1 & then download and double-click the Vector NTI installer from Invitrogen, but a few things will be missing.

1. Install wine

Please follow the instructions here to install the latest version of Wine. This is necessary as the builtin version of wine in Feisty is 0.9.33, which is not new enough to accomodate these instructions. DO NOT follow instructions from other HOWTOs that specify using winetools.

2. Create .wine directory if necessary using wineprefixcreate command.

This is necessary (for step 3) if you just installed wine or if you have not used it before. If you are already using other programs with wine, you do not need to do this (but you might run into programs if you have made any tweaks to get those other programs to run).

3. Place mfc42.dll (just search google) into .wine/drive_c/windows/system32.

This is not strictly necessary, but without it install will not create a few things like Web ordering in the tools menu.

4. Run the Vector NTI installer (wine "Vector NTI Advance 10.exe") and follow all instructions provided until told install is complete.

You can also just double click on the installer Executable.

5. (NOT REQUIRED ON 0.9.40) Run wineboot to simulate a Windows reboot and create all the Invitrogen items in the "wine" menu.

You may have to log out and back in to actually see these changes in your menu.

6. (NOT REQUIRED ON 0.9.40) Run winecfg, and select "Windows 98" mode.

This takes care of some glitches (esp. visualizing circular molecules) that occur when running in Win2000 mode.

7. ADVANCED: If you want to associate, e.g., ".gb" files with Vector NTI...

a. You need to make a simple shell script. Applications->Accessories->Text Editor, type this is in and save it somewhere (I have a bin subdirectory in my home directory and call this file winestart because it lets you start files with wine):

Code:

#!/bin/sh
wine start `winepath -w $*`

Save the file and exit.

b. Now right click on the file, Properties..., Permissions tab, and check "Allow executing file as program." Click OK. Or you can type in:

Code:

chmod +x ~/bin/winestart

c. Now, find a file you'd like to "associate" with a program that runs in wine (like Vector NTI) that is also associated with that program in Windows. Right click on the file, properties..., Open With tab, Add button, Custom, type in the path to the file you created like ~/bin/winestart, Ok, and make sure the little radiobutton next to winestart is clicked. Now press Ok.

Now, every time you double click on such a file (e.g., .gb), it will launch in Vector NTI.

Known problems:

1. winhelp functionality is not fully implemented in Wine. Therefore the Help menus are not currently usable at the moment.

Let me know if you have any other problems, and I will try to address them here/submit patches to wine to fix them.

Misha

**biotux** · February 20th, 2007

Dear Misha,
Thank you so much for this great script. I can finally completely dump the windows installation on my laptop.
I just found one little bug in the script. When it creates the desktop link to VectorNTI it is directed to /home/misha/bin... which I then had to change to my own home directory.
Anyway I owe you a beer for this

Best wishes,
BioTux

P.S. My system: Ubuntu 6.10 with wine 0.9.31

**misha680** · February 22nd, 2007

No prob, glad it worked for you and helped you dump windows. I fixed the error... guess people who don't have my username should be able to run it too

Beer's good too.

Oh yeah, and running with 0.9.31 is definitely good, as there are some bug fixes in that version that affect Vector NTI.

Misha

Originally Posted by biotux

Dear Misha,
Thank you so much for this great script. I can finally completely dump the windows installation on my laptop.
I just found one little bug in the script. When it creates the desktop link to VectorNTI it is directed to /home/misha/bin... which I then had to change to my own home directory.
Anyway I owe you a beer for this

Best wishes,
BioTux

P.S. My system: Ubuntu 6.10 with wine 0.9.31

**kabu** · February 22nd, 2007

Hi all,

I tried to follow all the instructions..installed the latest wine 0.9.31 on ubuntu 6.10 and installed cabextract and unzip...I set the permission to allow the script to be executed as a program and when I click on RUN IN TERMINAL, I see a black window poping up for half a second before disappearing and that's it ..no error message no nothing.
I have to admit I am not a big user of ubuntu but i followed all the intructions..any idea what could be my problem ??? I 'd really like to have this working..thanks

**misha680** · February 22nd, 2007

Hi, what I would do is to try to run the script from Terminal, because the problem is if there is some kind of error message in a script Terminal will just close right away, which isn't very helpful to actually seeing the error message.

So what I'd do is start Terminal from Applications->Accessories->Terminal. Then you need to change the current directory into wherever you saved the script. Probably easiest thing would be just to make sure it is in the home directory with the execute permissions and then type:

Code:

cd ~

Then to run the script type:

Code:

./InstallVectorNTI10.sh

now I think based on the behavior you described it will give you some kind of error. Post the error here and then I will have to instruct you further.

Misha

Originally Posted by kabu

Hi all,

I tried to follow all the instructions..installed the latest wine 0.9.31 on ubuntu 6.10 and installed cabextract and unzip...I set the permission to allow the script to be executed as a program and when I click on RUN IN TERMINAL, I see a black window poping up for half a second before disappearing and that's it ..no error message no nothing.
I have to admit I am not a big user of ubuntu but i followed all the intructions..any idea what could be my problem ??? I 'd really like to have this working..thanks

**kabu** · February 22nd, 2007

Hi and thanks for your quick answer!

I ran the script from the terminal and I got a message saying that CABEXTRACT needs to be installed.
When I tried to install it using: sudo aptitude install cabextract i get a serie of tasks "done", the last one is "building tag database" done and then I get "couldnt find any package whose name or description matched "cabextract"
what should i do now??? thanks for ur help..

**misha680** · February 22nd, 2007

Originally Posted by kabu

Hi and thanks for your quick answer!

I ran the script from the terminal and I got a message saying that CABEXTRACT needs to be installed.
When I tried to install it using: sudo aptitude install cabextract i get a serie of tasks "done", the last one is "building tag database" done and then I get "couldnt find any package whose name or description matched "cabextract"
what should i do now??? thanks for ur help..

Sure. I think you don't have the "universe" repository enabled. To do this go to System->Administration->Software Sources. Type your password, then make sure that "Community maintained Open Source Software (universe)" is enabled and click "Close." This should reload your sources files, and then you should be able to do:

Code:

sudo aptitude install cabextract

Let me know how it goes.

Misha

**kabu** · February 22nd, 2007

Hi Misha,

You were right! I enabled the universe software settings and i was able to install cabextract.
I ran the script..the download went fine..the installation was going on for 20 minutes..i left my computer on,hopefully the installation will be done by tomorrow morning

I will let u know, thanks again!

**misha680** · February 22nd, 2007

Originally Posted by kabu

Hi Misha,

You were right! I enabled the universe software settings and i was able to install cabextract.
I ran the script..the download went fine..the installation was going on for 20 minutes..i left my computer on,hopefully the installation will be done by tomorrow morning

I will let u know, thanks again!

Great, let me know how it goes.

Misha

**kabu** · February 23rd, 2007

Hey Misha,

After failing the installation a few times with the error "stack overflow", it finally worked.
I was able to launch VNTI and also the database, but i cannot open any molecule (i'm very familiar with the software) and I am getting the attached errors in the terminal. any clue??
thanks!