[Wine] All users

[Martin Gregorie]

On Mon, 2009-09-21 at 10:46 -0500, DaVince wrote:
> > Please, is there any simple way to make wine programs I have
> installed as admin, available to all users on my desktop computer?
>
Anything that works is unlikely to be simple because, in general,
Windows applications aren't set up to allow multiple access to any data
file that's updated by the application.

That said, it should be possible to move drive_c and all the directories
and files inside it from an application-specific wine prefix to a shared
location, set its permissions to give all authorised users read and
execute permissions and then replace drive_c in that prefix with a
symlink to the shared drive_c directory structure. Now the prefix can be
copied to the other authorised users $HOME directories.

However, there are things which will stop this working:

- the common drive_c *must not* contain any user-updatable
  configuration information such as user-specific preferences or
  private information.

- all user created and updatable data files must be in the user's
  $HOME directory or in the replicated stub of the prefix. 

- the application *must not* default to placing user-created files
  in its installation directory. 

If any of the above are true, you have a can of worms if you go ahead
because windows applications are typically written to assume that only
one user is using the application at a time. This is cannot be
guaranteed in a Linux system and the following problems cannot be
prevented:

- anybody's user preferences and specific configuration can be read and
  changed by anybody else using the application.

- its likely that there will be file access problems due to lack of
  file locking mechanisms in the application.

- you can't stop a user from  maliciously or accidentally corrupting
  the application if it defaults to storing application generated data
  in the installation directory and you permit this access.

- you'll have trouble explaining to some users why they can't use
  default storage folders if the default is the installation directory
  and you have denied update access to this area.


Martin