[Wine] exporting registry to Wine

[Markus Hitter]

Am 18.12.2007 um 16:25 schrieb L. Rahyen:

> If you are using it and having Windows you are using Linux because  
> you are
> interested in.

I'm running IRIX 6.5, MacOS 9 and Mac OS X as well, each OS has it's  
benefits.

> Point is very simple: if you don't like to install Windows programs  
> - don't
> install them and don't use them.

Maybe the equitation is that simple in the kindergarten's playground,  
but for sure, there are a lot more variables in the business world.

Probably you know it already, there is a mix of applications you  
simply have to use, because your business partners simply expect you  
to do it that ways. If you are advanterous, you start matching the  
partner's expectations the unusual way. Here is, how Linux finds  
ground in the corporate world, since most companies don't care _how_  
you create your Word documents as long as they _are_ Word documents.  
This is why OpenOffice is such a success and why Kwrite isn't. For  
the very same reason it's hard for Gimp to compete with Photoshop.


> If you disagree - ask the developers of each Windows program to not  
> use registry at all:

Sure, I can ask them, but they won't listen. They are running a multi  
billion dollar business and don't care at all wether I want to run  
the thing registry-free and/or on Linux. My only chance is to do the  
best out of what they give me.


Enter alternatives to Windows. I have to run these evil Windows apps,  
but prefer Linux' environment. So I have to join them somehow. The  
worst scenario is to boot alternating into Windows and Linux. Makes  
some 15 Minutes per switch, since you have to fire up and shut down  
all the apps as well.

Somewhat better is to set up two machines with a common or two  
separate monitors. If you have plenty of desk space, this is  
bearable. Remeber, I'm running three other OSs as well.

A lot better, but not yet ideal is to run Windows in qemu. Moving  
data between OS's without stop gap is possible already, but the  
complexity of the situation is immense. Sometimes, you don't even  
know in which OS the cursor currently is.

Pretty close to the ideal situation is to run that evil Windows app  
in Wine. The unfortunate about this is, Wine is pretty incomplete.  
The incompleteness won't change anytime soon, so you have to prepare  
to switch to native Windows from time to time. This is, why many  
people want to have native Window's and Wine's software synchronised.


I well rembember, a few weeks ago I suggested getting my Intel 3D  
graphics to work and got flamed. You can flame me again, but flaming  
interested people isn't the best way to increase the user base.


> If you want simple explanation here it is. As I have said you  
> cannot just replace WINE registry with Windows registry. You need  
> only program-specific portions of it but there is no way to know  
> what portions are needed and what not because Windows programs hide  
> their registry keys in many different non-obvious places.

Isn't the situation pretty similar to how DLLs get spread all over  
the partition? How about to look what keys are registered in a basic  
Windows installation and to exchange all keys but these? What, for  
example, happens if too many keys get sync'ed?

> (read: extremely hard to implement, so hard that no one will do it)

Sure, it might be hard. Have you already thought about syncronising  
when Wine/Windows is effectively shut down, i.e. no apps running?  
This could avoid reading registry keys from outside Windows, just use  
some app before shutdown to dump the registry into a file, then read  
this file at Wine startup. And vice versa, of course.

> (and you will not be able to use the program on Windows and WINE  
> simultaneously)

Such a situation can't exist, as desktop PCs can run only one OS at a  
time.


> Here is simple rule of thumb: don't
> expect from WINE something you don't expect from Windows.

Sure I do. I expect Wine to run on and coexist with Linux.


Markus

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Dipl. Ing. Markus Hitter
http://www.jump-ing.de/