[Bug 15199] New: automatic wine environment snapshot (time machine)

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15199

Summary: automatic wine environment snapshot (time machine)
           Product: Wine
           Version: 1.1.4
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: enhancement
          Priority: P3
         Component: -unknown
        AssignedTo: [e-mail]
        ReportedBy: [e-mail]

It would be useful if wine could make automatically snapshot of its entire
environment -- changes in registry, new programs installed. User would
configure how much snapshots he/she would like to have.

After (example) bad install of some bad program I could revert to the situation
before installation -- I could choose reverting wine registry files, deleting
programs files. This would work even if program would not allow for full
deinstallation.

Another example of usage would be running wine with not current registry set,
but selected -- with two options:
a) as temporary set -- all changes are gone as soon as wine quits, so after
full run there are no changes of any kind in wine
b) as current set -- so the previous set is promoted and the changes are saved
to the new-current snapshot

[Bug 15199] automatic wine environment snapshot (time machine)

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15199

--- Comment #1 from Jeff Zaroyko   2008-09-09 10:05:41 ---
why don't you use a tool like git?

[Bug 15199] automatic wine environment snapshot (time machine)

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15199

Dmitry Timoshkov  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|UNCONFIRMED                 |RESOLVED
         Resolution|                            |WONTFIX

--- Comment #2 from Dmitry Timoshkov   2008-09-09 10:08:17 ---
Wine is not a virtual machine. Why don't you request the same feature for
other Linux application? If you want a snapshot - archive ~/.wine as many
times as you wish, using any tools you like.

[Bug 15199] automatic wine environment snapshot (time machine)

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15199

Dmitry Timoshkov  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|RESOLVED                    |CLOSED

--- Comment #3 from Dmitry Timoshkov   2008-09-09 10:08:29 ---
Closing.

[Bug 15199] automatic wine environment snapshot (time machine)

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15199

--- Comment #4 from Maciej Pilichowski   2008-09-09 10:39:11 ---
Jeff, Dmitry,

Since any external program would deal with in fact internals of wine -- I never
cannot be sure if I made a full snapshot of wine, or something change.

I don't request auto-snapshot (or time machine) for programs like KMail,
Konqueror, etc. because such program does not run programs within -- only Wine
does. However I _did_ post a wish report for KDE -- because this is the case of
environment where you run other programs within it -- so far, my report was not
closed.

MacOSX has this feature (time machine) and somebody could argue, well, why
don't you use git/svn to make a snapshot of the system. Yet, since the argument
of internals is true for Mac too, it was useful for them, and done, so
regardless of wontfix I still think it would be useful for wine too, and doing
it from outside is a risky task (in terms -- something can be missed from
snapshot).

[Bug 15199] automatic wine environment snapshot (time machine)

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15199

--- Comment #5 from Austin English   2008-09-09 13:22:38 ---
(In reply to comment #4)
> Jeff, Dmitry,
>
> Since any external program would deal with in fact internals of wine -- I never
> cannot be sure if I made a full snapshot of wine, or something change.

All your registry settings are under $WINEPREFIX, as well as all installed
files, unless you installed them to a different mount point that is linked in
your WINEPREFIX.

[Bug 15199] automatic wine environment snapshot (time machine)

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15199

--- Comment #6 from Vitaliy Margolen   2008-09-09 13:24:49 ---
Wine is not windows. It is still running on *NIX. And you can still access all
the files regardless of what "system" thinks you should.

Because Wine is not VM there is no way (nor there will) to make the same type
of snapshot (with applications running). So the only option left - copy of all
the environment (files and registry). And that can easily be done by backing up
~/.wine (or more correctly $WINEPREFIX).

[Bug 15199] automatic wine environment snapshot (time machine)

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15199

--- Comment #7 from Maciej Pilichowski   2008-09-09 15:03:08 ---
Vitaliy,

By your comment I guess there is misunderstanding -- I am aware that Wine is
not Windows, it is not VM.

I am not asking about ability to make memory dump of running Wine at all! By
snapshot I mean copying all files needed to re/create Wine environment.

"Of course" when _none_ wine instance is running.

And about WINEPREFIX, simple hint, and it does not work from the start -- there
is not such setenv in my system (wine works fine).

The problem is not that I don't know how to use tar, gzip, svn, or whatever,
no. There is always problem in touching/changing/editing files from outside.
Registry files are not raw text files, so the problem arises right from the
start with diff and patch. And so on...

[Bug 15199] automatic wine environment snapshot (time machine)

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15199

--- Comment #8 from Austin English   2008-09-09 19:31:27 ---
(In reply to comment #7)
> "Of course" when _none_ wine instance is running.

If you're using wine to create this snapshot, a Wine instance will be running.

[Bug 15199] automatic wine environment snapshot (time machine)

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15199

--- Comment #9 from Dmitry Timoshkov   2008-09-10 00:14:08 ---
(In reply to comment #7)
> And about WINEPREFIX, simple hint, and it does not work from the start -- there

In the case of missing $WINEPREFIX, ~/.wine is the default.
> is not such setenv in my system (wine works fine). 
> The problem is not that I don't know how to use tar, gzip, svn, or whatever,
> no. There is always problem in touching/changing/editing files from outside.
> Registry files are not raw text files, so the problem arises right from the
> start with diff and patch. And so on...

Registry files in Wine *are* text files.

[Bug 15199] automatic wine environment snapshot (time machine)

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15199

--- Comment #10 from Maciej Pilichowski   2008-09-10 00:42:08 ---
Austin,

By "provide" I didn't mean literally wine file binary. winecfg is part of
Wine but it is not a wine executable, right? I thought it was obvious.

[Bug 15199] automatic wine environment snapshot (time machine)

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15199

--- Comment #11 from Dmitry Timoshkov   2008-09-10 03:00:22 ---
(In reply to comment #10)
> By "provide" I didn't mean literally wine file binary. winecfg is part of
> Wine but it is not a wine executable, right?

winecfg is a winelib app, which uses Wine libraries and environment.

[Bug 15199] automatic wine environment snapshot (time machine)

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15199

--- Comment #12 from Maciej Pilichowski   2008-09-10 03:59:05 ---
Yes, I know, in the same sense I was saying "provide" as another tool in the
Wine environment.

[Bug 15199] automatic wine environment snapshot (time machine)

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15199

--- Comment #13 from Austin English   2008-09-10 12:34:22 ---
(In reply to comment #12)
> Yes, I know, in the same sense I was saying "provide" as another tool in the
> Wine environment.

Any tool in the Wine environment will be using Wine to run, negating the
ability to use it for the purpose you describe. You need a native program to do
this when Wine isn't running.

I still don't see why you couldn't use rsync for this...

[Bug 15199] automatic wine environment snapshot (time machine)

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=15199

--- Comment #14 from Maciej Pilichowski   2008-09-10 13:11:09 ---
Maybe my English is failing me :-)

Ok, step by step. Let's say I run
rpm -i winexxxx
I will get -- wine, winecfg, etc.

So _IF_ there would be a time_machine in Wine environment (or package, or set,
or toolbox, or I am out of words), then I would run
time_machine

so in this case
rpm -i winexxxx
would give me not only wine, winecfg, but also time_machine. I would not have
to install it separately. And since it would be dealing with internals of wine
environment it could use some winelibs.

Yes, I probably can write this tool on my own (and I will try) but the one
thing is disturbing me that officially it is not guaranteed to edit registry
files (in raw text mode) and only on bugzilla (in other report) I heard that
well I could if wine is not running. This looks like some unofficial tricks, so
thus is this wish -- if there is some "unofficial" knowledge it would be better
to keep it within wine environment (set, package, toolbox, you name it).

Btw. the fact that some utility comes with Wine does not mean it has to be
something using Windows API, it could be sh script.