http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26835
bersl2 bersl2@cox.net changed:
What |Removed |Added ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CC| |bersl2@cox.net
--- Comment #105 from bersl2 bersl2@cox.net 2011-05-09 15:07:39 CDT --- (In reply to comment #103)
Just a thought ... obviously Portal 2 contains some NTFS-specific code and after the last update it contains another codepath for FAT32 (which does not use ADS). Maybe wine does not support ADS, but advertises the underlying filesystem as NTFS. That way portal 2 still uses the ntfs-specific codepath and fails. Can wine be told to advertise FAT32 to applications? Or has anyone tried to set the Windows version to Win95 or Win98, which don't support NTFS?
As the person who kept pushing the ADS hypothesis, shouldn't someone at least try to confirm whether or not that feature is being used before assuming that it's actually the source of the problem?
The reasons for my believing that ADS had something to do with the problem were, from my perspective: 1. Very few, if any, Wine users were having success running the game without bypassing its protection mechanisms. Many were having success after the bypass. 2. Very many (and perhaps all) native Windows users who had installed Steam and their games onto FAT-type filesystems were having similar problems. 3. Even though the API isn't portable, filesystem forks exist on both Windows/NTFS and Mac OS X/HFS+, and I couldn't think of any other userspace-exposed, filesystem-dependent feature that I didn't think was supported in Wine. Furthermore, if ever one wanted to have data that stayed with a file in an obscured way but wouldn't easily leave the machine on which the file originated, something which matches the M.O. of DRM, forks are a good way to go. 4. Valve was brick-walling even clearly legitimate customers on supported platforms. They were suggesting conversion of filesystem to NTFS as a work-around. Use of FAT filesystems is also plausibly something that could be overlooked in the design and testing of a DRM system---because, I mean, really, who uses those things anyway? ;)
Evidence against that hypothesis was: 1. Even some NTFS users were having similar or the same issues. (These could have been other issues, though.) 2. No one had come forward saying that ADSs were even being used, something which could be extrememly easy to confirm, depending on how this feature was being used if it were.
I would confirm it myself, but that's difficult without a copy of Windows (which I don't have) and a working copy of the game. Plus, I didn't get much interest from users in Valve's own forums. (I figured that I might as well vent along with everybody else at the same time as I sought productive answers.) :D