Windows version autodetection

Scott Ritchie scott at open-vote.org
Sun Dec 21 15:10:28 CST 2008


Reece Dunn wrote:
> 2008/12/21 Damjan Jovanovic <damjan.jov at gmail.com>:
>> On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 11:49 AM, Reece Dunn <msclrhd at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>> 2008/12/21 Damjan Jovanovic <damjan.jov at gmail.com>:
>>> You can change the version of Windows reported for different
>>> applications, and the default version using winecfg -> Applications.
>> I know, but bugs coming up from the wrong default version aren't
>> always obvious (in my case they were registry keys that don't get
>> created during installation).
> 
> This is where having people contributing to AppDB would be useful.
> They would know what version of Windows being reported by Wine would
> work best - even when that changes in the future. This will take some
> experimentation, but after some investigation it can be figured out.
> 
>>> I'm not sure that adding heuristics would be the correct approach, as
>>> those can lead to incorrect results. The winecfg option supports the
>>> user being able to change the version of Windows reported for the
>>> specified application. The workflow could be better, though (e.g.
>>> supporting an option on an exe's right-click menu).
>> Heuristics aren't necessarily wrong:
>>
>> File Header
>>  Machine:                      014C (i386)
>>  Number of Sections:           6
>>  TimeDateStamp:                31104C75 (Thu Feb  1 07:15:33 1996) offset 136
>>
>> Feb 1 1996 can't be later than Windows 95.
> 
> Sure. But what if an application was shipped after Vista or Windows
> Server 2008, but only worked on XP and earlier. Your detection would
> not work here.
> 

In that case the user is no worse off - they'd still need to look up
AppDB and change their settings with winecfg.

I don't see how these two ideas are in contest - we can have both good
heuristics and good means for coping with failure (AppDB lookup, right
click preferences setting for windows version, etc.)

Right now the current heuristic is "always try wine's default", which
could easily be improved upon.

Thanks,
Scott Ritchie




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