Wine on Edubuntu 11.10 can't find exe files entered in Winecfg

Question

Am running Edubuntu 11.10 on an HP low-profile desktop with AMD 64 CPU and 512MB RAM.

I installed and updated Wine 1.3 and set Winecfg to auto detect drives per the instructions at WineHQ.

It labelled the CDROM as D: and then I put the various .exe files (like setup.exe, start.exe, etc) in the Winecfg window.

Even with the original disc in the CDROM drive and typing things from terminal like: wine setup.exe, there was error msg: could not find c:\windows\sytem32\setup.exe and the program didn't start.

In Winecfg, I chose to remain with "Default" settings. Help much appreciated but much detail needed as I am newbie to Linux, the terminal and Wine.

Answer 1

You need to use the full Linux path

Wine does not find executables using the drives you enter into Winecfg.

In order to execute your files from the command line, you need to find their path in Linux.

For example, if the file is on your CDROM, you need to use wine /cdrom/setup.exe in the commandline.

Why Winecfg allows you to add executables

The reason for this is because some applications need "workarounds" or native dlls in order to run on Linux via Wine.

Only add applications here if they need a library override.

Winecfg allows you to add these applications so that you can configure their requirements easily, but it does not mean that Wine will automatically find the files when you type "wine appnamegoeshere.exe".

How Wine Finds executables

Much like Windows, Wine only finds files automatically if they are in the "system folders". These include C:\, C:\Windows, and C:\Windows\System32 (and a few others).

Note: These are drive mappings, and do not make executables and files automatically visible to Wine

Adding D:\ to the list of drives does not make executables automatically visible to Wine. Instead, what it does, is make it easier for applications (and you) to find files as you would on Windows, using Drive Letters and the usual path format from Windows.