wine users - Dec 2005 - Oddity running software from "The learning Company"

We got a "freebie" CD-ROM at a drive through that is produced by
"The
Learning Company".  After installing dcom98, adding the registry
settings to allow creation of desktop icons, and getting wine to say it
was win98, I finally got the thing to install.

The application main menu runs, but when it call "start.exe" to start
the actual game, everything exits cleanly and stops.  Start.exe does
show a "usage" display, suggesting that it is not receiving the
parameter(s) that is(are) allegedly being supplied by the main menu for
launching.

I am using version 0.9.2 on Fedora core 3 with the latest patches.

Any ideas of what I need to look for?



IMHO: These registry settings in question should probably be a part of
the standard setup since they appear to cause so many problems with
installations:

[Software\\Classes\\CLSID\\{00021400-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
1135376984
@="Shortcut"

[Software\\Classes\\CLSID\\{00021400-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\
\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\Software\\Classes\\CLSID] 1135376896

[Software\\Classes\\CLSID\\{00021400-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\
\InProcServer32] 1135377008
@="shell32.dll"
"ThreadingModel"="Apartment"

[Software\\Classes\\CLSID\\{00021401-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\
\InProcServer32] 1135377026
@="shell32.dll"
"ThreadingModel"="Apartment"

[Software\\Classes\\CLSID\\{00021401-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\
\shellex\\MayChangeDefaultMenu] 1135377097



Thanks in advance,
David Johnson