Just a windows/linux WINE Idea
 

I was just thinking. I have a windows partition and a linux partition. Now must of the time I use Linux but sometimes I have to boot into windows to play some games. Some games/software require a Linux Native files system for proper read/write functions but only Windows don't see any linux file systems. Now I want on my windows software to be accessible on both linux and windows with out multiple installations of the same software so I was thinking of making a
/usr/share/wine and mounting a fat32 files system

Create a symlink in all users home directory .wine > /usr/share/wine

Now on Windows the fat32 files system will be mounted as c:\Programs Files

Is there anything I should be aware of by doing this? It seems like it will work out pretty good. What is your input?

Thanks

Hi jmc1987,

It's a great idea, but unfortunately WINE isn't quite at that stage yet.

See http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-497f...13312c7767afa2

Yes I am aware of that but I don't think you see how this would really work. Wine is going to run of the root C: Drive. All of Wine configuration folders would be in the windows programs folder. So it shouldn't over wright any of windows core system files. C:\Windows Won't even be mounted. The only real problem I see is if I install everything through windows I would have to import bits and pieces into WINE Regedit to fix some issues.

I'm no expert on Windows but I think there's things like .dll's you'll have to worry about too.. as far as I know Windows doesn't store everything in those program files, but I could be wrong. Some settings may also not be transferred which may cause problems (ie. since the registries will be two seperate copies, there will be inconsistencies).

Whats the worst that could happen? I think you'll spend a lot of time tinkering around with some programs, and others will "just work". Worst case you'll need to re-install an application in Windows that Wine somehow messed up. Give it a shot and report back. I suppose, as long as you make sure Wine doesn't touch Windows specific files, you should be safe from destroying your Windows install...

I guess there is only 1 way to find out. I guess I can send a backup of my windows to my fileserver and try it. It will be a little bit befor I get the time but I will try it out and see how it works. The only thing I am worry about it being a fat32 partition is that I can't hold an file bigger than 4gb. But I don't think to many programs make files that big anyways so it prolly don't matter. I will report back soon.

Excellent, I'm interested to hear the results. 4GB files don't occur too frequently, I doubt you'll have any trouble.

Just an UPdate if you guys wanted to know the outcome of this idea, I am in the process of doing it now. I will give details on how I done it and going to test this with Sim city 4 Delux, The sims 2, World of Warcraft Cata and we'll see how this turn out.

Okay so far I haven't made much progress I can' figure out how to get pass this. Here is what I've done

I've create .wine folder in my home directory
added vfat partition in fstab as
Command "sudo mount -a" to mount fat partition.
Command "wineboot" to fill in the files"

Here is where my first problem begins and I can't figure it out why it won't work right.
It created the base files in .wine but none of the subdirectory files such as system32. Is there something im doing that fat32 don't support?