Browse boxes to change install directory halt Wine

[motub at planet.nl]

Hi again,

Now that Ender so kindly enabled me to use Wine (now using 20040121
under Mandrake 9.2), "naturally" the first thing I did was try to
install some games.

Before anybody says "WineX".... just don't. The precompiled Mandrake
binaries from http://www003.portalis.it/115/ install fine, but on the
whole I've always had more success running Wine and I can't afford to
subscribe to WineX anyway. 

So here's my (first) problem: I do not want to install to the
fake_windows Program Files directory. I have paths set up in .config to
other partitions. One is FAT32, for games that I may also play when
booted into Windows, and one ext3 shared Linux partition for the very
purpose of installing large games that I play under any one of the four
distros I run.

But when I tried to install SiN and Half-Life (I copied and pasted the
InstallShield directories from my Windows install so the installs
themselves go fine so far) and clicked the "Browse" button to change
directories, the child window opened, but was blank in both the list
window and drop down menus (so I could not select another "drive" or
directory). I could type a path manually, but clicking neither OK nor
Cancel dispelled the child window, and neither the child window or main
window could be dispelled by any means (including closing the terminal
window I had run the setup command from)-- except for killing (not
ending, killing) the (main) wine-pthread process in the System Monitor
(as opposed to the wineserver or any other wine-pthreads or other
wine-related processes).

If it's helpful, here's the logs from the terminal up to the point of
the error:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Half-Life:

bash-2.05b$ wine SETUP.EXE
Loading required GL library /usr/lib/libGL.so.1
Loading required GL library /usr/lib/libGL.so.1
fixme:dialog:MSGBOX_OnInit task modal msgbox ! Not modal yet.
bash-2.05b$ err:dosfs:DRIVE_GetLabel Invalid or unreadable superblock on
/dev/floppy/0 (A:).
Invalid or unreadable superblock on /dev/floppy/0 (A:). Maybe not FAT?
fixme:dosfs:CDROM_GetLabel Need to get the label of a mixed mode CD!
fixme:shell:ShellView_OnNotify -- 0x4adaae30 WM_COMMAND ffffff98 unhandled
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
SiN:

bash-2.05b$ wine setup.exe
Loading required GL library /usr/lib/libGL.so.1
Loading required GL library /usr/lib/libGL.so.1
bash-2.05b$ Loading required GL library /usr/lib/libGL.so.1
Loading required GL library /usr/lib/libGL.so.1
err:dosfs:DRIVE_GetLabel Invalid or unreadable superblock on
/dev/floppy/0 (A:).Invalid or unreadable superblock on /dev/floppy/0
(A:). Maybe not FAT?
fixme:shell:ShellView_OnNotify -- 0x4ad97990 WM_COMMAND ffffff98 unhandled
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is no floppy in the floppy drive (why would there be? Does it
really make a difference? Surely that can't be the source of the error,
can it?).

Wine problem? User error? Fixable? Hackable? I really do not have room
in my home directory to install much (by my own design), so I hope that
there's a way around it.

Thanks in advance,
Holly Bostick