>>I have settled on a VM with XP for my old win stuff. Only rule I follow: no internet from there.
>>I have not had that much roboting to do in the last few years, in part due to shunning IE automation.
>>Firm resolve here: next task roboting will be either in Selenium or with bought modern tool, depending on use case.
>>If I use vfp, use it clearly separated and do all marshalling/communication/messaging/analysis wia JScript and a broker object.
>
>Not quite my case. If I had to parse any webpages (which I still do, in one case), it's httpGetEx(), not browser automation.
>
>>Is it worth the effort to tweak wine if I can have my isolated VM mostly unpatched under Linux as well ?
>
>Yes, in terms of peace of mind - no M$ stuff at all except Fox itself. So I don't have to keep the split personality aka two OSes on the same box, remember what's on VM's local disk and what's in shared space etc etc. Now it's all together. Notice my new employer... :), I'm finally doing what I wanted for years. Spent a whole day moving the stuff I wanted to keep and then shut down the W7 VM. Bliss.
>
>So... still looking for an answer to this:
>
>>>Now that I got rid of Windowses, the slight trouble remains that several among my favorite tools (class browser, environment manager, GoFish) use a browser object in this or that shape, and it's not available by default under wine. Does anyone still bother with this kind of setup, and has some useful advice, or should I continue investigating on my own?
>>>
>>>The Ole2 field in the vcxes where I was using it, it says OLEObject = C:\WINDOWS\System32\shdocvw.dll - if that helps any.
>>>In some other cases, it's OLEObject = C:\Windows\SysWOW64\ieframe.dll - go figure.

Congrats on being retired!

Dunno if you're still supporting any VFP apps for clients using them on Windows, or otherwise have any requirement that your apps run as expected on Windows. If so I'd recommend maintaining a Windows VM for that purpose. If you only got rid of a W7 VM because it's going end-of-life next January, then you can set up a W10 VM using the same activation key you used for W7 and it works fine - if your W7 is Pro 64-bit then the W10 you get is also Pro 64-bit.

Basically, with a Windows VM all sorts of problems like you originally outlined just don't happen. Yes, you have to disable Cortana and lock down all the privacy settings but you can be sure networking and other critical bits that VFP depends on will work as expected.

I understand Wine has made some progress over the last couple of years, but I'm still a bit surprised that you find VFP to be working "well enough" on it for at least hobby use, if not professional support. Besides what you've already reported, can you tell us anything else about the experience?