[Wine] copy Windows registry

[L. Rahyen]

On 2010-07-06 (July, Tuesday) 06:28:50 ahso wrote:
> Hi
> l've managed to fly in FS9 by simply mounting my Win partition. Now a lot
>  of addons have registry entries so I wonder if I could bypass all this
>  installation orgy somehow? Anyone tried to copy the original Windows
>  registry to .wine? Also some paths would need adjustments? Thanks

	You can't do that (actually you can but it will brake EVERYTHING in your Wine 
prefix). Not only in Wine but in Windows too. Think about Wine prefix(es) as 
clean installation(s) of another version of Windows; you can't copy the 
registry from Windows 7 to Windows XP and vice-versa without breaking 
everything; similarly, you can't copy the registry from Windows to Wine or 
vice-versa without breaking everything.

	Only way to bypass installation is by using programs like InstallRite but this 
should be avoided (there a lot of reasons why such programs aren't perfect and 
not always can replace real installation - remember that you should think about 
Wine prefix like separate installation of Windows). If you can do normal 
installation - do it. If you can't - report a bug.

	If you don't want to reinstall your application every time something brakes 
for whatever reason, install it in separate Wine prefix, back up it and use your 
application; if something brakes or you will want to "install" it for another 
user, use the "clean" backup of Wine prefix with the installed application. This 
is the best way to avoid installation(s).

	Of course if you are too lazy to even install your application at least once, 
nothing will help you. For example if you are using Windows 7 and decided to 
install Windows XP you will not be able to run most of your Windows 
applications (installed in Windows 7) without reinstalling them (in Windows 
XP). For Wine it is the same.