wine users - Sep 2005 - Windows app complaining that it doesn't have adminstrator privileges

Hi,
	I have Wine installed on an Ubuntu (Hoary) machine.  I've verified
that Wine works by running a couple of Windows applications.  Lately, I
trying installing a third Windows application by inserting the CD and
following the Windows based directions.  Unfortunately, the only thing
that installer did was display a window saying that it doesn't have
administrator privileges.  (I know the Windows app works since I've
installed it on another machine.)
	My question is: How do I configure Wine so that it tells the installer
that it's running as administrator (or any other user, for that fact)? 
I tried "sudo wine <file>", but that didn't work.

Thanks,
Mark




		
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Mark Lisee schreef:
> Hi, I have Wine installed on an Ubuntu (Hoary) machine.  I've 
> verified that Wine works by running a couple of Windows applications.
>  Lately, I trying installing a third Windows application by inserting
>  the CD and following the Windows based directions.  Unfortunately, 
> the only thing that installer did was display a window saying that it
>  doesn't have administrator privileges.  (I know the Windows app 
> works since I've installed it on another machine.) My question is: 
> How do I configure Wine so that it tells the installer that it's 
> running as administrator (or any other user, for that fact)? I tried 
> "sudo wine <file>", but that didn't work.
> 
> Thanks, Mark
> 
Hi, Mark,

Sorry to say that sudo won't help you-- the program is looking for
*Windows* Administrator privileges, not Linux root privileges.

The cause of this problem is most likely a combination of 2 factors:

1) The fact that Wine now defaults to 'emulating' Windows 2K by default,
rather than Windows 98; and

2) The fact that many Windows programs of a certain type, when they were
updated to work with Win2K from previous compatibility with Win98 (which
does not have an Administrator), began to require Administrator
privileges under 2K and higher to install. This usually happens with
utilities like defrag utilities or other scanners/blockers/repair utils
that can be run as a service. This at least makes sense, as in order to
run as a service, the application has to hook into the
M(icrosoft)M(anagement)C(onsole), which is an Administrator-only system
application. But I have, oddly enough, seen programs which would seem to
have no use for administrative privileges require them on installation;
recent versions of PaintShopPro are one example of this.

The 'solution' is to tell the application that it's being installed
under Win98 (assuming that the program is willing to install under
Win98), rather than 2K. Since as far as I know, there is no
implementation of Windows' fairly sorry implementation of user privilege
separation in Wine (meaning that, afaik, you cannot become the Windows
Administrator under Wine), the only other option is to go back to the
'good old days' where it didn't exist (Win98).

Try running winecfg (I assume your version of Wine is later than
20050628, and therefore has the winecfg utility replacing the config
file), and change your "Windows version" settings on the first tab
(Applications) from "Automatically detect required version" to
"Win98".
If you don't want to change the setting globally, you could also add a
per-application default for the setup by (on the same tab), choosing
"Add Application", browsing to the setup for the app and selecting
the installation executable. Then select the just added exe in the list
and set the windows version for that executable only to Win98 (this will
likely affect all setup executables with the same name, since the name is
likely not unique and Wine is not quite that clever-- but since I don't
have a Win2k license, but a Win98 licence, and since I find that most
installers work better under Wine 'emulating' Win98 anyway, I don't
mind
about this).

Anyway, hope this is helpful to you.
Holly