[Wine] Re: question about WINEPREFIX

[Jim]

Phobos wrote:
> I wanted to ask to the wine experts something about WINEPREFIX or the crossover bottles...
> 
> how does the concept of "bottles" compares/differs with the concept of application virtualization (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_Virtualization) used by VMware's Thinstall (http://www.thinstall.com/products/virtualization_suite.php) (aside for the .exe container*) and Microsoft's Softgrid/Application Virtualization (http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/softgrid/default.mspx)?
> 
> *I have used Thinstall a bit and it encapsulates all the files required by the app to work in an exe, including the registry keys (they call it "virtual registry") 
> 
> aside from these two products, how does it compares to the portableapps (http://portableapps.com/) process (which is in turn similar to thinstall but it's not an automated process and doesn't have the "virtual registry")?... why do the bottles need a "whole" c: drive?


Apples, oranges, and bananas.

PortableApps focuses on making applications run on an external medium such as a flash drive.  It does this by modifying the application itself to make it store all its settings, data files, and binaries on a path relative to some folder (eg. on a flash drive).  In many cases to make an application a "PortableApp" the source code for the application is modified.  The applications themselves get tweaked.  For PortableApps to run on Linux/Mac environments Wine is used.

Thinstall technically doesn't modify the application itself rather it packages it and everything it needs in a single executable file.  When you create a Thinstall application you create a snapshot world for your application to run in.  Again, in order to run on Unix environments Wine is used.

More over, both PortableApps and Thinstall depend on having access to a Windows runtime environment (a.k.a Windows APIs).  Wine provides an alternative implementation of Windows APIs, which can then be used to run PortableApps and Thinstalled software.

All three tackle their respective goals in very different ways, but only one of them can stand by itself on a Unix platform. :D