179 lines
7.7 KiB
Plaintext
179 lines
7.7 KiB
Plaintext
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The Registry
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------------
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After Win3.x, the registry became a fundamental part of Windows. It is
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the place where both Windows itself, and all
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Win95/98/NT/2000/whatever-compliant applications, store configuration
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and state data. While most sane system administrators (and Wine
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developers) curse badly at the twisted nature of the Windows registry,
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it is still necessary for Wine to support it somehow.
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Registry structure
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The Windows registry is an elaborate tree structure, and not even most
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Windows programmers are fully aware of how the registry is laid out,
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with its different "hives" and numerous links between them; a full
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coverage is out of the scope of this document. But here are the basic
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registry keys you might need to know about for now.
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HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
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This fundamental root key (in win9x, stored in the hidden file
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system.dat) contains everything pertaining to the current
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Windows installation.
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HKEY_USERS
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This fundamental root key (in win9x, stored in the hidden file
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user.dat) contains configuration data for every user of the
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installation.
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HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
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This is a link to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes. It
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contains data describing things like file associations, OLE
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document handlers, and COM classes.
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HKEY_CURRENT_USER
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This is a link to HKEY_USERS\your_username, i.e., your personal
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configuration.
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Using a Windows registry
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If you point Wine at an existing MS Windows installation (by setting
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the appropriate directories in wine.conf/.winerc), then Wine is able
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to load registry data from it. However, Wine will not save anything to
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the real Windows registry, but rather to its own registry files (see
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below). Of course, if a particular registry value exists in both the
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Windows registry and in the Wine registry, then Wine will use the
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latter.
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Occasionally, Wine may have trouble loading the Windows registry.
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Usually, this is because the registry is inconsistent or damaged in
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some way. If that becomes a problem, you may want to download the
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regclean.exe from the MS website and use it to clean up the registry.
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Alternatively, you can always use regedit.exe to export the registry
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data you want into a text file, and then import it in Wine.
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Wine registry data files
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In the user's home directory, there is a subdirectory named .wine,
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where Wine will try to save its registry by default. It saves into
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four files, which are:
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system.reg
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This file contains HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
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user.reg
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This file contains HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
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userdef.reg
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This file contains HKEY_USERS\.Default (i.e. the default user
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settings).
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wine.userreg
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Wine saves HKEY_USERS to this file (both current and default
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user), but does not load from it, unless userdef.reg is
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missing.
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All of these files are human-readable text files, so unlike Windows,
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you can actually use an ordinary text editor on them if you must.
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In addition to these files, Wine can also optionally load from global
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registry files residing in the same directory as the global wine.conf
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(i.e. /usr/local/etc if you compiled from source). These are:
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wine.systemreg
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Contains HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
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wine.userreg
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Contains HKEY_USERS.
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System administration
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With the above file structure, it is possible for a system
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administrator to configure the system so that a system Wine
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installation (and applications) can be shared by all the users, and
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still let the users all have their own personalized configuration. An
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administrator can, after having installed Wine and any Windows
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application software he wants the users to have access to, copy the
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resulting system.reg and wine.userreg over to the global registry
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files (which we assume will reside in /usr/local/etc here), with:
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cd ~/.wine
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cp system.reg /usr/local/etc/wine.systemreg
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cp wine.userreg /usr/local/etc/wine.userreg
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and perhaps even symlink these back to the administrator's account, to
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make it easier to install apps system-wide later:
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ln -sf /usr/local/etc/wine.systemreg system.reg
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ln -sf /usr/local/etc/wine.userreg wine.userreg
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Note that the tools/wineinstall script already does all of this for
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you, if you install Wine as root. If you then install Windows
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applications while logged in as root, all your users will
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automatically be able to use them. While the application setup will be
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taken from the global registry, the users' personalized configurations
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will be saved in their own home directories.
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But be careful with what you do with the administrator account - if
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you do copy or link the administrator's registry to the global
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registry, any user might be able to read the administrator's
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preferences, which might not be good if sensitive information
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(passwords, personal information, etc) is stored there. Only use the
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administrator account to install software, not for daily work; use an
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ordinary user account for that.
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The default registry
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A Windows registry contains many keys by default, and some of them are
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necessary for even installers to operate correctly. The keys that the
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Wine developers have found necessary to install applications are
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distributed in a file called "winedefault.reg". It is automatically
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installed for you if you use the tools/wineinstall script, but if you
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want to install it manually, you can do so by using the regapi tool.
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You can find more information about this in the
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documentation/no-windows document in the Wine distribution.
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The [registry] section
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With the above information fresh in mind, let's look at the
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wine.conf/.winerc options for handling the registry.
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LoadGlobalRegistryFiles
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Controls whether to try to load the global registry files, if
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they exist.
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LoadHomeRegistryFiles
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Controls whether to try to load the user's registry files (in
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the .wine subdirectory of the user's home directory).
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LoadWindowsRegistryFiles
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Controls whether Wine will attempt to load registry data from a
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real Windows registry in an existing MS Windows installation.
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WritetoHomeRegistryFiles
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Controls whether registry data will be written to the user's
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registry files. (Currently, there is no alternative, so if you
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turn this off, Wine cannot save the registry on disk at all;
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after you exit Wine, your changes will be lost.)
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UseNewFormat
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This option is obsolete. Wine now always use the new format;
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support for the old format was removed a while ago.
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PeriodicSave
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If this option is set to a nonzero value, it specifies that you
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want the registry to be saved to disk at the given interval. If
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it is not set, the registry will only be saved to disk when the
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wineserver terminates.
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SaveOnlyUpdatedKeys
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Controls whether the entire registry is saved to the user's
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registry files, or only subkeys the user have actually changed.
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Considering that the user's registry will override any global
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registry files and Windows registry files, it usually makes
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sense to only save user-modified subkeys; that way, changes to
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the rest of the global or Windows registries will still affect
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the user.
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- Ove K<>ven
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