http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=32428
Bug #: 32428 Summary: Support loading/appending optional registry files Product: Wine Version: 1.5.19 Platform: x86 OS/Version: Linux Status: NEW Severity: normal Priority: P2 Component: -unknown AssignedTo: wine-bugs@winehq.org ReportedBy: scott@open-vote.org Classification: Unclassified
It would be useful for me to have a wineprefix be a system-level read only folder and be updated by system package installation.
In order for this to work with user data, however, a copy-on-write filesystem needs to be introduced (eg unionfs-fuse) that creates a union between the read-only packaged prefix and a user-level folder; newer versions of files will end up in ~/.appname or similar.
This breaks down, however, with Wine's implementation of the registry as a few flat files. Consider:
Version 1.0 of package has x in user.reg User runs the app and appends "foo" to registry. Package is updated to version 2.0 which has "bar" added to user.reg. Because user.reg already exists in ~/.appname, this user will forever have "foo" but not "bar" unless he deletes ~/.appname (or at least user.reg therein).
One solution would be an environment variable to have Wine write/load new registry entries to a different filename, eg ADDITIONAL_WINE_REGISTRY=local.reg -- then Wine would load its registry files as normal, but supercede them with any newer entries found in local.reg. This way local.reg could be in ~/.appname but not the packaged read-only prefix, and "the right thing" would happen with any application updates.