[cw-discuss] bottle in frontame

[Jeremy White]

Hi Joel,

Well, you've asked about a complex area - we tend to
prefer to describe it as simply as we can to try to avoid
confusion.  But, since you ask, I'll go into some detail.

A 'bottle' is, essentially, a complete replica of a
Windows environment.  It has a set of registry files
(*.reg) and a C: drive (the drive_c) directory.  It has directories
that Windows expects to find - c:\windows\ for example.

And in normal operation of CrossOver, a bottle will start to look
an awful lot like a Windows system (c:\Program Files and so on).

However, there are some differences.  First, the registry files
are simple plain text files - not the binary format that Microsoft
uses.  Further, the registry entries are really geared for the
purposes of Wine (and therefore CrossOver).  Thus, reconciling
the registries between a Bottle and a true Windows partition
is a non trivial task.

Frankly, it is a non trivial task on Windows as well - that is why
you never find people just copying a program from one computer
to another - you always end up having to reinstall.  That's an
area where Mac OS is clearly superior, even to Linux, imho.

So now to the question of whether or not you can use files
from your legal copy of Windows to have it do something useful.

The basic answer is:  yes, in theory.  But in practice it's
a long and convoluted process that will most likely end up
completely wasting your time.  The two things that have a
remote chance of doing something useful are:

  1.  Installing a program that doesn't install in CrossOver via Windows

      If an application doesn't install in CrossOver,
      then you can't see if it will work.  Frankly, we want to
      fix any such instances, so let us know if that happens so we
      can fix it.

      But in the meantime, you could copy all of the installed files
      that went into c:\Program Files\ on the real Windows install
      into the bottle, and try running.  You'll most likely also
      need to export the registry for that program (which is
      quite hard), and import it into the bottle.
      (Programs...Run Command..pick a bottle...regedit).


  2.  Using DLLs from a Microsoft system

      Wine (and therefore CrossOver) can use any Windows DLL.
      There are times when Wine's implementation of some Windows
      DLL is not as good as the original, and that goes on to
      cause problems.

      By copying the 'real' DLL into the Bottle environment,
      you can sometimes get past a problem.

      This, too, is something we don't like - we really prefer
      to fix the underlying problem.  (This sort of copying has
      led to complacency in the past, and that wasn't helpful).

      But the true master of this is Tom Wickline - I think he
      is unparalled at getting things to run.

But, for all that, we really prefer to make this much simpler
for everyone involved and just pretend that the answer to your
question is:  no <grin>.

Cheers,

Jeremy


If it's something you really want to do,
jbrave wrote:
> Since bottles appear to have files resembling the original windows 
> executables (I assume they are actually open source attempts at  cloning
> those executables and their function?) would there be any  benefit to
> replacing those executeable files with the actual original  windows
> files if you own them? Could you have a bottle that is really  an
> instance of a legal windows install, thus eliminating the need to  try
> to and replicate all the work of M$? Maybe I'm just unclear on  the
> concept of a bottle - but a directory listing of the contents  certainly
> seems the way I've described - perhaps I am seeing the same  illusion
> that the bottled program is supposed to see?
> 
> Joel
> 
> _______________________________________________
> discuss mailing list
> discuss at crossover.codeweavers.com
> http://crossover.codeweavers.com/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>