wine users - Jan 2010 - [FAQ] [RFC] entry about locations of Windows drives

Dear Wine users,


could you please review the following question and add it to the FAQ
[1].

=== How do I change the location of Wine?s C: drive? ==
Wine?s C: drive is located in your home directory under
`~/.wine/dosdrives/c:` which points to `~/.wine/drive_c/`.

{{{
$ ls -l ~/.wine/dosdevices/
lrwxrwxrwx 1 joe joe 10 17. Jun 2009  c: -> ../drive_c
}}}

Wine?s C: drive should always be located in your home directory under
`.wine`. That is why change C: is also not supported using Wine?s
configuration tool (`winecfg`), that means the Edit button does not get
activated.

If you want to change it at your own risk just let the
`~/.wine/dosdrives/c:` point to a different location using the `ln`
command. Keep in mind that Wine is a per-user program, so that it is not
officially supported to share Wine drives between users [2].


I could not find any information on this topic besides [2]. So I am
sorry, if this information is incorrect.


Thanks,

Paul


[1] http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ
[2] http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-users/2004-November/015831.html
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: Dies ist ein digital signierter Nachrichtenteil
URL:
<http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-users/attachments/20100102/f3bf7af3/attachment.pgp>

On Sat, Jan 2, 2010 at 12:39, Paul Menzel
<paulepanter at users.sourceforge.net> wrote:
> === How do I change the location of Wine?s C: drive? ==>
It might make sense to start with the warnings... (To stop users from
just reading what they want to see and stopping before the
warnings...)

It should probably also say that Wine's c: should never be pointed to
a Windows installation and contain the requirements for it. (A Unix
filesystem, preferably not on a network share, etc.)

Paul Menzel wrote:
> 
> Wine???s C: drive is located in your home directory under
> `~/.wine/dosdrives/c:` which points to `~/.wine/drive_c/`.
> 

This is not correct. First of all ~/.wine/dosdevices/c: is just a symlink to
~/.wine/drive_c. Second, it is possible to have other wineprefixes besides
~/.wine, each will have their own drive_c, and they do not have to be located in
your home directory.

The reason winecfg will not allow users to point C: elsewhere is to prevent them
from pointing it to a real Windows partition. If they do, Wine will overwrite
the real Windows registry and Windows will be toast. This is already explained
in the FAQ, and the decision not to include information on how to circumvent it
is a deliberate one.
http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-497f1a295d53dd3444f211df2b13312c7767afa2

Am Samstag, den 02.01.2010, 09:07 -0600 schrieb dimesio:
> Paul Menzel wrote:
> > 
> > Wine?s C: drive is located in your home directory under
> > `~/.wine/dosdrives/c:` which points to `~/.wine/drive_c/`.
> 
> This is not correct. First of all ~/.wine/dosdevices/c: is just a
> symlink to ~/.wine/drive_c.
That is what I tried to express by writing ?points to?.
> Second, it is possible to have other wineprefixes besides ~/.wine,
> each will have their own drive_c, and they do not have to be located
> in your home directory.
I learned this from oiaohm in another thread today. Thanks! But
wineprefixes seem to serve a different purpose as written in 7.2 in the
FAQs than changing the C: [1]. But the question was to just *move* the
whole directory. Using wineprefixes with all its advantages still leaves
(after the first run of Wine(?)) `~/.wine/drive_c` in my home directory
and most of the time the user will already have something installed in
there before s/he knows more about it and thinks about moving it to a
different place.

The question is also how a person, not familiar with the CLI is supposed
to do this.
> The reason winecfg will not allow users to point C: elsewhere is to
> prevent them from pointing it to a real Windows partition. If they do,
> Wine will overwrite the real Windows registry and Windows will be
> toast. This is already explained in the FAQ, and the decision not to
> include information on how to circumvent it is a deliberate one.
> http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-497f1a295d53dd3444f211df2b13312c7767afa2
Thank you, I overlooked that. In my opinion this is hard to find and
should be covered in a separate question where 7.2 can point to.

Here is my next proposal including the comments by Gert. My comments
included with ?>?.


=== x.y Can I point the Wine?s letter C: to the partition with my Windows C:? ==
Never ever do this or your Windows installation will be toast!!!

WARNING: Do not try to configure Wine to point to your actual Windows C:
\ drive. This will break Windows and require a reinstall. 


=== How do I change the location of Wine?s C: drive? ==
or

=== I cannot change the drive mapping for letter C: in `winecfg`! ==> (no
question indeed)

WARNING:Do not try to configure Wine to point to your actual Windows C:\
drive. This will break Windows and require a reinstall. Read 7.2 and
x.y!

We have tried to make this hard to do so you probably cannot do it by
accident. If you do manage this, Wine may or may not continue to
operate, but your Windows install will be 100% dead due to critical
parts of it being overwritten. The only way to fix Windows after this
has happened is to reinstall it.

That is why you cannot change this in the configuration tool. If you
know what you are doing you can figure this out yourself!
> I do know if the following should be included.
You can read about *wineprefixes* in the manual page (type `man wine` in
a terminal), but remember to not let it point to your actual Windows
installation.


Thanks,

Paul


[1] http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-f2f5f3bc795247f11962ea613a1f9e15657ad552
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 198 bytes
Desc: Dies ist ein digital signierter Nachrichtenteil
URL:
<http://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-users/attachments/20100102/e9f9ca3a/attachment.pgp>

Paul Menzel wrote:
> === How do I change the location of Wine???s C: drive? ==
It'd made hard for a reason. If you do not know how to edit symlinks - you
shouldn't be changing location of your c: drive.

dimesio wrote:
> Paul Menzel wrote:
>   
>> Wine???s C: drive is located in your home directory under
>> `~/.wine/dosdrives/c:` which points to `~/.wine/drive_c/`.
>>
>>     
>
>
> This is not correct. First of all ~/.wine/dosdevices/c: is just a symlink
to ~/.wine/drive_c. Second, it is possible to have other wineprefixes besides
~/.wine, each will have their own drive_c, and they do not have to be located in
your home directory.
>
> The reason winecfg will not allow users to point C: elsewhere is to prevent
them from pointing it to a real Windows partition. If they do, Wine will
overwrite the real Windows registry and Windows will be toast. This is already
explained in the FAQ, and the decision not to include information on how to
circumvent it is a deliberate one.
http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-497f1a295d53dd3444f211df2b13312c7767afa2
>
>   
Definitely. That is unless you want to completely break your working
Windows installation and many features available under Wine will NOT
work on a FAT32 or NTFS native partition.

James McKenzie