[Wine]Problem in the path for executables...

Holly Bostick
Sun, 05 Jun 2005 05:35:08 -0000

D Deepesh schreef:
> Hi,
>
> I have a windows executable which I am trying to run in Linux using wine.
> When I execute the command :
>
> wine {ABSOLUTE_PATH}/file1.exe,
>
> file1.exe runs many other executables internally, like file2.exe, file3.exe
> and file4.exe.
>
> Now when file1.exe is trying to run the other executables, it is not able
to
> get the path of the executables. I have the "PATH" enironment
variable set
> correctly. But I do not think this is the problem.
>
> I enabled the WINEDEBUG so that I see all the wine warning and error
> messages. From that I could deduce that the executables file2.exe,
file3.exe
> and file4.exe were being searched in the current working directory.
>
> Please guide me on how to tackle this situation.
>
> Is there any entry in the windows registry which is set when the software
is
> installed on the windows system and some such equivalent is missing in wine
> configuration settings in linux.
>
> Thank you,
> Deepesh
>
>
>

Hello, Deepesh,

The first thing that seems a good idea is to try running the program
from the installation directory rather than from some random current
working directory. The program you are trying to run would be far from
the first that vastly prefers being run like this

cd /program_installation_directory
wine program.exe

than like this

wine /program_installation_directory/program.exe

There are enough programs that run poorly or not at all in the latter
case, but run perfectly fine when run in the former manner, that it's
worth assuming that the program should be run from its installation
directory rather than by absolute path as a general rule.

If you're trying to run programs from a shortcut or panel entry, it's
quite easy to write a short bash script to ensure this:

#!/bin/bash
cd program_installation_directory
wine program.exe

name it program_start.sh, make it executable, and then link the shortcut
to this script rather than the absolute path. I've got several such
scripts myself for this very reason.

This may solve your problem without further ado. If it does not,
however, we can move to my second point:

Is there some secret code I am unaware of that makes people reluctant to
flatly state the name of the program they are trying to run? I feel like
there must be concerns that some native-Linux-application-use secret
police are monitoring the list or something, since you are again far
from the first who has constructed an elaborate hypothetical to describe
the behaviour of some program rather than just saying, "Program X
(Photoshop, Dreamweaver MX, Half-Life, whatever) does this."

I just don't understand it. As this is the wine-users list, we already
expect you to be attempting to run non-native programs, since that's all
Wine runs. So I can't see the harm in saying what the program is;
certainly nothing that would cause so many users to behave as if they
were doing something so shameful by attempting to run a Windows
application in the first place that they can't even whisper the name of
the application they're having problems with. If there *were*
native-Linux-application-use secret police-- which there are not-- we'd
already be busted anyway :-) , and in any case, it's your computer; you
can run what you want. That's the very reason Wine exists... so you can
run what you want, native or non-native alike.

Being specific would enable both us and you to easily determine if this
is a known problem with that particular program, or a known problem with
the class or group of programs within which your application falls.
Because Windows applications are not standardized, Wine does not (and
probably won't ever) work so well that a description of the performance
(or lack of performance) for a hypothetical "program.exe" is a
suitable
replacement for concrete data regarding a specific application such as
"PowerPoint.exe".

Your question about the Registry is an example of this. How can we
possibly know if there's a difference between the native Registry
entries for this program and the Wine Registry entries for this program
without knowing what the program is (and thereby knowing, hopefully,
what Registry entries it creates under both native and non-native
conditions)?

So if running your "mystery program" :-) from the installation
directory
 rather than via an absolute path does not help, please provide more
details about the program and any error messages when it fails (if you
are not running the application from a terminal, please do so for the
purposes of this experiment so that you can see any error messages
produced by the console).

Hope this helps,

Holly