[Wine] Re: linux and wine noob needs help with installing SketchUp

[motub]

rlcgrn wrote:
> I have Ubuntu 10.04 and just installed WINE 1.2 (because it's stable version).
> I am installing SketchUp 8, and the installer asks what destination folder to install to.  It defaults to
>  "C:\Program Files\Google\Google SketchUp 8\"
> and won't let me change to the Linux format of
>  "home/user/Sketchup" 
> that I think is correct.  What do I do?  The Wine FAQ states:
> "WARNING: Do not try to configure Wine to point to your actual Windows C:\ drive. This will break Windows and require a Windows reinstall. We have tried to make this hard to do, so you probably cannot do it by accident. If you do manage this, Wine may or may not continue to operate, but your Windows install will be 100% dead due to critical parts of it being overwritten. The only way to fix Windows after this has happened is to reinstall it. " 
>  Am I understanding this correctly?

Sorry to say, no.

The "C:\Program Files\" that your program is trying to install to is Wine's fake C:\ drive, created when Wine was first run/configured. This fake C:\ drive exists in /home/username/.wine (the hidden folder commonly known as "the default $WINEPREFIX"). 

The WARNING you quote regards people who have actual Windows available (as a dual boot, for example), and who therefore have a real Windows C:\ drive. As stated, trying to replace Wine's fake C:\ drive (which is really just a sub-folder in your $HOME directory) with a real Windows C:\ drive 1) won't work and 2) will break your real Windows boot.

But I doubt you have to worry about that, as I suspect that adding drives to be visible to Wine or changing the current "drives" associated with WINE is more advanced usage than you've got to yet.

In any case, letting your program install to the default location is perfectly safe; it'll wind up in /home/<username>/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Google/SketchUp 8.