http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=10534
--- Comment #6 from Bamm Gabriana bammzilla@gabriana.com 2007-11-27 07:56:07 ---
I would suggest trying to run DOS programs with DOSBOX or DOSEMU instead of Wine.
That sounds to me like filing a bug in Firefox and someone replying to use Konqueror instead. :)
Yes there are alternatives, but a bug was filed so it can be fixed. The Wine project also includes the DOS subsystem, which is why it has the winevdm and winedos modules.
There are advantages to having a single program (e.g. Wine) run both DOS and Windows programs. First is that an .EXE extension can either be a DOS or Windows program. CLI people do not understand this need, but GUI people like me need to have an extension mapped to a particular program, so that clicking it would open the associated program. I once downloaded an astronomy software I needed, and not knowing it was DOS-based, double clicked it. Nothing happened. Clicked again and still nothing. KDE System Guard then showed multiple instances of winevdm in memory waiting to be killed. I don't think this is desirable behavior.
Second is that there are Windows programs that are frontends for DOS programs, and if Wine couldn't open the DOS program, will cause the Windows program to hang.
Now, if Wine could only automatically invoke DOSEMU whenever it encounters a DOS program (assuming DOSEMU is installed) and pass on the command, then that would solve my problem of which program to associate the .EXE extension. Additionally, perhaps binfmt should also learn to pass on DOS programs to DOSEMU and Windows programs to Wine. If this is not possible then Wine should fix its DOS support.