autorun perhaps dangerous (Was: Wine release 0.9.53)

[L. Rahyen]

On Sunday January 13 2008 20:45:49 Steven Edwards wrote:
> My point in reply to Dmitry's comment was while I
> agree using winecfg for msconfig functionality is fine I was just
> using a reductio ad-absurdum to point out that if we are not going to
> make a wrapper program for msconfig for power windows users that are
> used to certain windows functionality because we don't care about them
> and the windows way of doing things, then why should we care about
> windows power users ablity to graphically edit the registry?

	Because it is important for MOST Linux users who use WINE. Of course some 
users use regedit rarely, some frequently - but fact is that they are using 
it. For example, I use it but I know very little about Windows.
	Most users will expect ability to edit startup keys in winecfg. And rest of 
users who didn't expect it to be there will learn about it very quickly - as 
soon as they run winecfg at least once.
	As I have already said, use of winecfg will be intuitive for both Linux and 
Windows power users. I simply see no problem here.
	I'm sure that there will be very little number of users who would use 
something else instead of winecfg when winecfg will have a tab for 
configurion startup keys.

> Because we
> obviously don't care about whats convenient to people coming from a
> windows background using that logic.

	"We shouldn't care about Windows power users" != "we shouldn't care 
about Linux users". Please note that I say nothing here about should we care 
about Windows (power) users or not. I'm just pointing that your logic isn't 
correct.
	I try to explain why. First of all, msconfig and regedit cannot be compared 
like two utilities of same importance or like two programs intended for same 
audience.
	regedit is extremely popular, its use is intuitive for most Linux users, and 
it cannot be replaced with a tab in winecfg. It even cannot be replaced with 
external Linux tools like text editor because wineserver will overwrite any 
changes that was made by an external program (this is true of course only if 
wineserver was running; you need to shutdown it before using external program 
for registry editing).
	msconfig is mostly intended for Window power users, its use isn't intuitive 
for most Linux users (in fact, it even isn't intuitive for most Windows users 
too), and it can be replaced with a tab in winecfg (at least, its most 
important functionality).
	As you can see, there is a big difference. It is incorrect to ignore 
importance of regedit for Linux users. Why? Because if msconfig was very 
important then it (or at least its simplified replacement) can be even 
written from scratch. This is true for regedit but isn't true for msconfig.  
In other words, it is unlikely that someone will write it from scratch in 
near future because of very low demand; but if WINE will lack regedit utility 
it is very likely that someone will write it from scratch if necessary.
	That just means regedit is important not only for Windows power users but for 
most of WINE users (including simple Linux users who are using WINE).