344 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
344 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
<sect1 id="registry">
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<title>The Registry</title>
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<para>
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written by Ove Kåven
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</para>
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<para>
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(Extracted from <filename>wine/documentation/registry</filename>)
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</para>
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<para>
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After Win3.x, the registry became a fundamental part of Windows.
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It is the place where both Windows itself, and all
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Win95/98/NT/2000/whatever-compliant applications, store
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configuration and state data. While most sane system
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administrators (and Wine developers) curse badly at the twisted
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nature of the Windows registry, it is still necessary for Wine
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to support it somehow.
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</para>
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<sect2>
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<title>Registry structure</title>
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<para>
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The Windows registry is an elaborate tree structure, and not
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even most Windows programmers are fully aware of how the
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registry is laid out, with its different "hives" and numerous
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links between them; a full coverage is out of the scope of
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this document. But here are the basic registry keys you might
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need to know about for now.
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</para>
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<variablelist>
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<varlistentry>
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<term>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE</term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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This fundamental root key (in win9x, stored in the
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hidden file <filename>system.dat</filename>) contains
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everything pertaining to the current Windows
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installation.
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term>HKEY_USERS</term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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This fundamental root key (in win9x, stored in the
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hidden file <filename>user.dat</filename>) contains
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configuration data for every user of the installation.
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term>HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT</term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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This is a link to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes.
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It contains data describing things like file
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associations, OLE document handlers, and COM classes.
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term>HKEY_CURRENT_USER</term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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This is a link to HKEY_USERS\your_username, i.e., your
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personal configuration.
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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</variablelist>
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</sect2>
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<sect2>
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<title>Using a Windows registry</title>
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<para>
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If you point Wine at an existing MS Windows installation (by
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setting the appropriate directories in
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<filename>~/.wine/config</filename>, then Wine is able to load
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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
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files (see below). Of course, if a particular registry value
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exists in both the Windows registry and in the Wine registry,
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then Wine will use the latter.
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</para>
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<para>
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Occasionally, Wine may have trouble loading the Windows
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registry. Usually, this is because the registry is
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inconsistent or damaged in some way. If that becomes a
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problem, you may want to download the
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<filename>regclean.exe</filename> from the MS website and use
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it to clean up the registry. Alternatively, you can always use
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<filename>regedit.exe</filename> to export the registry data
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you want into a text file, and then import it in Wine.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2>
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<title>Wine registry data files</title>
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<para>
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In the user's home directory, there is a subdirectory named
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<filename>.wine</filename>, where Wine will try to save its
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registry by default. It saves into four files, which are:
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</para>
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<variablelist>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><filename>system.reg</filename></term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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This file contains HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><filename>user.reg</filename></term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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This file contains HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><filename>userdef.reg</filename></term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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This file contains HKEY_USERS\.Default (i.e. the default
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user settings).
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><filename>wine.userreg</filename></term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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Wine saves HKEY_USERS to this file (both current and
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default user), but does not load from it, unless
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<filename>userdef.reg</filename> is missing.
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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</variablelist>
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<para>
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All of these files are human-readable text files, so unlike
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Windows, you can actually use an ordinary text editor on them
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if you must.
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</para>
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<para>
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In addition to these files, Wine can also optionally load from
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global registry files residing in the same directory as the
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global <filename>wine.conf</filename> (i.e.
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<filename>/usr/local/etc</filename> if you compiled from
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source). These are:
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</para>
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<variablelist>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><filename>wine.systemreg</filename></term>
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<listitem>
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<para>Contains HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term><filename>wine.userreg</filename></term>
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<listitem>
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<para>Contains HKEY_USERS.</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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</variablelist>
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</sect2>
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<sect2>
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<title>System administration</title>
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<para>
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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
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users, and still let the users all have their own personalized
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configuration. An administrator can, after having installed
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Wine and any Windows application software he wants the users
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to have access to, copy the resulting
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<filename>system.reg</filename> and
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<filename>wine.userreg</filename> over to the global registry
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files (which we assume will reside in
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<filename>/usr/local/etc</filename> here), with:
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</para>
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<screen>
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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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</screen>
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<para>
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and perhaps even symlink these back to the administrator's
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account, to make it easier to install apps system-wide later:
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</para>
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<screen>
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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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</screen>
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<para>
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Note that the <filename>tools/wineinstall</filename> script
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already does all of this for you, if you install Wine as root.
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If you then install Windows applications while logged in as
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root, all your users will automatically be able to use them.
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While the application setup will be taken from the global
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registry, the users' personalized configurations will be saved
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in their own home directories.
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</para>
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<para>
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But be careful with what you do with the administrator account
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- if you do copy or link the administrator's registry to the
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global registry, any user might be able to read the
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administrator's preferences, which might not be good if
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sensitive information (passwords, personal information, etc)
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is stored there. Only use the administrator account to install
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software, not for daily work; use an ordinary user account for
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that.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2>
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<title>The default registry</title>
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<para>
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A Windows registry contains many keys by default, and some of
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them are necessary for even installers to operate correctly.
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The keys that the Wine developers have found necessary to
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install applications are distributed in a file called
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<filename>winedefault.reg</filename>. It is automatically
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installed for you if you use the
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<filename>tools/wineinstall</filename> script, but if you want
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to install it manually, you can do so by using the
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<command>regapi</command> tool. You can find more information
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about this in the
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<filename>documentation/no-windows</filename> document in the
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Wine distribution.
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</para>
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</sect2>
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<sect2>
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<title>The [registry] section</title>
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<para>
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With the above information fresh in mind, let's look at the
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<filename>wine.conf</filename>/<filename>~/.wine/config</filename>
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options for handling the registry.
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</para>
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<variablelist>
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<varlistentry>
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<term>LoadGlobalRegistryFiles</term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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Controls whether to try to load the global registry
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files, if they exist.
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term>LoadHomeRegistryFiles</term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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Controls whether to try to load the user's registry
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files (in the <filename>.wine</filename> subdirectory of
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the user's home directory).
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term>LoadWindowsRegistryFiles</term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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Controls whether Wine will attempt to load registry data
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from a real Windows registry in an existing MS Windows
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installation.
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term>WritetoHomeRegistryFiles</term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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Controls whether registry data will be written to the
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user's registry files. (Currently, there is no
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alternative, so if you turn this off, Wine cannot save
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the registry on disk at all; after you exit Wine, your
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changes will be lost.)
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term>UseNewFormat</term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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This option is obsolete. Wine now always uses the new
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format; support for the old format was removed a while
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ago.
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term>PeriodicSave</term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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If this option is set to a nonzero value, it specifies
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that you want the registry to be saved to disk at the
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given interval. If it is not set, the registry will only
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be saved to disk when the wineserver terminates.
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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<varlistentry>
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<term>SaveOnlyUpdatedKeys</term>
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<listitem>
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<para>
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Controls whether the entire registry is saved to the
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user's registry files, or only subkeys the user have
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actually changed. Considering that the user's registry
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will override any global registry files and Windows
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registry files, it usually makes sense to only save
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user-modified subkeys; that way, changes to the rest of
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the global or Windows registries will still affect the
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user.
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</para>
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</listitem>
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</varlistentry>
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</variablelist>
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</sect2>
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</sect1>
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<!-- Keep this comment at the end of the file
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Local variables:
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mode: sgml
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sgml-parent-document:("configuring.sgml" "chapter" "sect1" "")
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End:
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-->
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