BMW TIS on Mac OSX for free...one way

[blender]

So I wanted to get the TIS running naitively on OSX for free. Loading Parallels and a full XP emulation was too slow and a also memory pig. The same theory should work on nearly any Linux distro.

If don't know what the TIS is, you can skip this post and go back to thinking about bunny rabbits or something.

For those still here, the solution I used was the free windoze emulator called WINE compiled for OSX along with an application packager called WineBottler. Link. Note that I did have to buy a TIS DVD for $20.00 off ebay.

You'll need an OSX machine with at least v10.5.x and apple's X11 installed [ from your OSX disks.] Install Wine and create a Prefix [like a set of preferences] with the ODBC dlls included via the Wine Control Panel. Select XP as the emulated operating system. The KEY difference here is that you are not running XP, just emulating the core libraries, so WINE actually runs faster and takes less memory than truly running XP inside Parallels or VMWare Fusion. And, no XP license required

Once WINE is installed, use the wine-dos prompt to navigate to the TIS DVD and run autorun.exe. Install the Sysadmin shell, then the TIS as per the included instructions. you may see a prompt to re-install the odbc drivers; i said 'yes', waited for the odbc sub-install to begin, then canceled it. TIS asks if the odbc install succeeded, say yes and carry on.

Assuming you do it correctly, you get this:

Attachment 360901

...and it only consumes about 100MB of RAM in my case. It's fast and usable. NOTE that my X11 likes to start the windows minimized for some reason, so just zoom them fullscreen from the menu. I print via screenshot and Preview. The WineBottler app lets you package a WINE application as a stand-alone icon on the OSX desktop, and loads WINE under the covers with no fuss. Mission accomplished.

Anyway if you decide to try it, expect half an hour of setup. I'm no guru but the provided documentation was adequate for me. Good luck.

regards,

RC.

[Finnegan]

Cool. I'll have get the TIS and see if I can get it to run in WINE under Linux.

[Bimmer-Bob]

Hey, thanks for the awesome info - unfortunately, I'm running into some issues that I expect aren't that complicated, but simply out of my realm.

Originally Posted by rclem05

You'll need an OSX machine with at least v10.5.x and apple's X11 installed [ from your OSX disks.] Install Wine

Check

and create a Prefix [like a set of preferences] with the ODBC dlls included via the Wine Control Panel.

Huh? I'm confused about the whole prefix thing. How do I include the OBDC dlls? I'm trying to install the setup.exe in order to install TIS, but every time I do so the system looks for OBDC drivers to install and can't find them, so aborts.

Select XP as the emulated operating system.

I also didn't see anywhere that I was supposed to select an OS to emulate. I'm thinking I just haven't made it this far. If you could point me in the right direction regarding the OBDC issue, I'd very much appreciate it. Thanks.

[blender]

That would be these... they are acessible when creating a new Wine Prefix:

Attachment 430549

[Bimmer-Bob]

Thanks for your help.

I was able to get the needed ODBC drivers installed and successfully installed the Sysadm utility as a standalone app on my desktop. I ran that, and was able to install TIS. I chose to install it to hard disk. It then proceeded to download a ton of files and then said setup was complete.

So now both TIS and Sysadmin appear as installed programs in my WINE Control Panel. But I can't for the life of me figure out how to run TIS. It's supposedly installed - but I can't find it anywhere. Any ideas?

Is this what Windows users feel like all the time?



EDIT: One more thing I noticed - whenever I'm running the TIS setup, it's not asking me weather or not I want to install a desktop shortcut (icon). The instructions state that the program should ask this right after it asks me to specify a hard disk or CD installation. Did you get asked that?

2nd EDIT: Okay, I think I actually AM running TIS. I get some window with some disclaimer about hydrogen vehicles and then I hit "Close" and all that is left is a teeny tiny bar with a close button as well as grayed out minimize and maximize buttons. So I hit "Zoom" in the X11 drop-down menu, and I can get an application bar along the top of my screen, with normal Mac buttons on the left, and in the center is the X11 icon with "TIS" next to it, exactly like the app in your screenshot - but there's no app underneath, just my desktop or whatever else is running.

[DMike]

Bimmer-Bob,

I experienced the same problem. Deselecting Wine configuration / graphics / "Allow the window manager to control the windows" worked for me.

[Eran]

Originally Posted by blender

Install Wine and create a Prefix [like a set of preferences] with the ODBC dlls included via the Wine Control Panel. Select XP as the emulated operating system.

Once WINE is installed, use the wine-dos prompt to navigate to the TIS DVD and run autorun.exe. Install the Sysadmin shell, then the TIS as per the included instructions. you may see a prompt to re-install the odbc drivers; i said 'yes', waited for the odbc sub-install to begin, then canceled it. TIS asks if the odbc install succeeded, say yes and carry on.

RC.

I having the same troubles as Bimmer-bob, How do I include the ODBC dlls?
When I try to install Tis it keeps saying the MS access driver is not installed.

I cannot see the attachments posted earlier in the thread.

[beta]

You don't need wine bottler, you can just use wine. I installed wine with macports, then just installed the tis from there.

I had to use winetricks to get the dlls working, see Getting native ODBC drivers working.

Works like a charm.

[krusty]

What's the advantage of using WINE over using Boot Camp?

[beta]

Originally Posted by krusty

What's the advantage of using WINE over using Boot Camp?

You don't need an entire copy of windows running and you don't need to reboot your machine. You can run the TIS on the mac side. With boot camp you have to reboot into windows, then launch the app.

There is also Parallels which wouldn't require that you reboot your computer (so you can run windows and mac at the same time), but you'd still need a full copy of windows.

With Wine you don't need windows at all. Wine stands for Wine Is Not An Emulator. It basicallly re-implements the windows API so the application "thinks" it's running in windows.

[beta]

I just got PDF printing working from TIS under wine. Now I can print TIS pages and attach them here.

[beta]

TIS.app 1.4GB

Double clickable, even has a nice icon. Will print to your default printer (System Preferences > Print). If you want to print to PDF just install CUPS-PDF, then add the CUPS-PDF printer and select it as your default (also in System Preferences > Print).

I know it doesn't seem like it, but it runs fast! Don't get me wrong, it's still slow, but compared to the version I was running in the terminal it's twice as fast.

One caveat of printing, you may have to click the Print button twice before the menu comes down that allows you to print.

[Z4-Life]

I thought BMW's diagnostic programs such DIS/GT1 and TIS were meant to run natively on UNIX systems. Mac OS(s) are UNIX based so I would "assume" that it would have been easier running these programs [on a Mac]... and with out the need for a windows emulator.

...at least you'll know if your mac crashes it is not your OS's fault...

[beta]

Originally Posted by Z4-Life

I thought BMW's diagnostic programs such DIS/GT1 and TIS were meant to run natively on UNIX systems. Mac OS(s) are UNIX based so I would "assume" that it would have been easier running these programs [on a Mac]... and with out the need for a windows emulator.

...at least you'll know if your mac crashes it is not your OS's fault...

Nope it's all windows. And windows 9X or something that old for that matter. DIS you have to run through bootcamp, and once under bootcamp since bootcamp only supports 7 or 8, you have to run it in a vmware or other emulator! I can run TIS on my mac using the link above, but for DIS I have to reboot into windows. It does work great though, already ran the VANOS test without issue.

Even the online TIS (for vehicles made after december 2007) requires Explorer. It used to require an ancient version of that too.

If it was Unix it would've been much easier.

[aerobod]

Originally Posted by beta

Nope it's all windows. And windows 9X or something that old for that matter. DIS you have to run through bootcamp, and once under bootcamp since bootcamp only supports 7 or 8, you have to run it in a vmware or other emulator! I can run TIS on my mac using the link above, but for DIS I have to reboot into windows. It does work great though, already ran the VANOS test without issue.

Even the online TIS (for vehicles made after december 2007) requires Explorer. It used to require an ancient version of that too.

If it was Unix it would've been much easier.

The TIS has Linux compatible binaries on the distribution and will install with Oracle for the database (Oracle personal edition is available as a free distribution). When I tried to install it natively on Fedora, all the error messages are in German, so I gave up after about the 10th error that I had rectified (muddling through debug with the help of Google translate) and managed to install most of the data components into Oracle, but still didn't have it working. I'm sure BMW has an install document somewhere for the Linux/Oracle version, but probably only in German.

[poldim]

Originally Posted by beta

TIS.app 1.4GB

Double clickable, even has a nice icon. Will print to your default printer (System Preferences > Print). If you want to print to PDF just install CUPS-PDF, then add the CUPS-PDF printer and select it as your default (also in System Preferences > Print).

I know it doesn't seem like it, but it runs fast! Don't get me wrong, it's still slow, but compared to the version I was running in the terminal it's twice as fast.

One caveat of printing, you may have to click the Print button twice before the menu comes down that allows you to print.

DOOOOOOOOD!!

This is awesome. I was messing around with a VM when I came across this thread. I have not tried connecting to the car to see anything, but being able to see the TIS running natively without hoop is awesome! It is an energy hog on my MBP, but probably no more than the VM route.

For anyone else that is curious, I installed winebottler, downloaded the TIS.app, extracted it, double clicked it, and had it running.