[Wine]Re: Bug#181699: #181699 Re: #181699 wine: vague error message: "dramatically effect" in what way?

[Scott Ritchie]

What really matters is not whether Wine has a Windows drive and
filesystem to sit on top of, but whether or not Wine can use native
Windows DLLs instead of its builtin ones.  Some DLLs in Wine are so
perfect that they can be used in Windows - no benefit will be gained
from running an app that uses these natively.  Some of Wine's DLLs are
buggy or incomplete - using stock native Windows ones was a way around
this, however a lot of work has been done on the problem areas.

These days, the easiest way to get native DLLs that are still helpful is
by installing a few Microsoft applications that provide those DLLs for
Wine.  DCOM98, a provider of the rather hard to do ole DLLs, is the
easiest way to get the important files to run Install Shield.  Some
applications also require installing Internet Explorer.

I highly recommend you don't use a windows drive and instead let Wine
create its own fake windows drive automatically, and you then supply
some of the missing DLLs using Winetools.  A link to Winetools can be
found on the Wine downloads page, along with packages for the latest
release of Wine.

Thanks,
Scott Ritchie

On Sun, 2005-01-16 at 19:06 -0500, Alfie Costa wrote:
> I was rereading old bugs and thought I'd have another go at this one. 
> The story so far:
> 
> Current:
> 
>      Note that one change you can make that will dramatically
>      effect Wine's behaviour is to change whether or not
>      Wine uses a true Windows partition, mounted under Linux,
>      or whether it uses an empty Windows directory.
> 
> First (failed) attempt at revising it:
> 
>       Note to experimenters:  one change you can make that may
>       dramatically improve Wine's behaviour is to change whether or not
>       Wine uses a true Windows partition, mounted under Linux,
>       or whether it uses an empty Windows directory.
> 
> ...and that's where I got mixed up about one change between two choices, 
> or two binary choices with four possible outcomes.
> 
> Anyway it occurs to me that 'wine' either runs off a directory or a 
> partition, one or the other.  Therefore "or not" and the second 
> "whether" don't belong.
> 
> Second try:
> 
>       Note to experimenters:  one change you can make that may
>       dramatically improve Wine's behaviour is to change whether
>       Wine uses a true Windows partition mounted under Linux,
>       or an empty Windows directory.
> 
> Well that's better, but something still puzzles me.  What the heck is an 
> "EMPTY Windows directory"???  A plain old "Windows directory" is where 
> MS Windows is stored, that's clear.  But an EMPTY one would seem to be 
> where MS Windows WAS stored but is now erased -- and one empty directory 
>   is just like another, so there'd be no reason to have once been a 
> 'Windows' directory.  An "EMPTY OS/2 directory" could do the same job.
> 
> Should it say "an empty directory"?  No, because 'wine' would find 
> nothing to emulate in an empty directory.  So despite progress, the 
> intended meaning remains elusive.
> 
> More questions.  In "whether wine uses", the verb 'uses' applies to 
> which variable or variables in the '.wine/config' file?  I'm guessing 
> these two but it's better to make sure:
> 
> 	[wine]
> 	"Windows" = "C:\\windows"
> 	"System" = "C:\\windows\\system"
> 
> So case #1, "a true Windows partition, mounted under Linux", would also 
> require something like:
> 
> 	[Drive C]
> 	"Path" = "/mnt/c"	# where /mnt/c might be /dev/hda2
> 	"Type" = "hd"
> 	"Label" = "/mnt/c"
> 	"Filesystem" = "win95"
> 
> And case #2 "an empty Windows directory" (shrug!) would require 
> something like:
> 
> 	[Drive C]
> 	"Path" = "/home/foo/c"
> 	"Type" = "hd"
> 	"Label" = "psuedo C drive"
> 	"Filesystem" = "win95"
> 
> Is the above correct?
> 
> 
>