[cw-discuss] bottle in frontame

[Tim Pearce]

Jeremy,

I am intrigued that you say *any* Windows DLL can be copied.

Does this mean that Windows and Wine completely separate hardware DLLs 
(I am assuming Windows uses DLLs for hardware drivers) from application 
DLLs. Aren't there any 'naughty' DLLs around that talk to hardware direct ?

Am I right in assuming that the Wine 'kernel' interfaces to the OS where 
Windows interfaces to it's hardware drivers ?

As for using real Windows DLLs. I've heard a theory that because Win 98 
is now 'abandon ware', anyone can use it. Now it might sound like 
cheating, but if this theory is correct, then using real Windows DLLs 
might be a way of speeding up Wine development, by allowing effort to go 
into other areas. Mind you, you would want to make sure you were legally 
right in doing so.

I expect that sometime in the 2010-2015 period Windows will become a 
'distribution' of ReactOS and that Microsoft will be a major contributor 
to ReactOS and Wine !

[ReactOS is essentially, an open source implementation of Windows. There 
is a lot of crossover and cooperation between the Wine and ReactOS teams]

Tim

Jeremy White wrote:

> 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:
> 
>   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
> 
> 

-- 
Tim Pearce <tim at our-eden.com>