[Wine] Re: Easily changing directory where program files should be inst

[dimesio]

Paul Menzel wrote:
> 
> 1. How is a CLI illiterate user supposed to do this?
> 2. Would the use of different Wine prefixes result in more resource
> usage since for example the registry is not shared?
> 3. Using Wine prefixes gives me more than I asked for, I think. I just
> want all files belonging to program files go into a different directory
> than `~/.wine/`. Still if I do this with Wine prefixes I have to set the
> `WINEPREFIX` variable for the user and the whole Wine configuration and
> installed applications will go there? Is this recommended?
> 


1. Either learn to use the CLI, or use a third party app that provides a user friendly interface for wineprefix management. Note that if you use a third party app, it will not be supported here. http://wiki.winehq.org/ThirdPartyApplications

2. You don't have to have many wineprefixes, though there are advantages to doing so. You can create one wineprefix wherever you want (and even name it .wine if you so desire) and install all your apps to it.  (Make sure the location is a native *nix filesystem such as ext2 or ext3.) You will have to set the WINEPREFIX variable every time you run anything (though it should be added automatically by winemenubuilder to menu and desktop links). If you don't specify a different wineprefix, Wine defaults to ~/.wine. But that's all it is: a default setting. There's nothing special about ~/.wine.

3. If your app's installer prompts you for a location, as many do, you should be able to browse to wherever you want on your system, even another partition, and install the program files there, while keeping the registry in ~/.wine, if you really want to. If your app's installer doesn't give you a choice, you will have to use a different wineprefix. As to whether this is recommended, most experienced users have multiple wineprefixes. I only use ~/.wine when running regression tests.