http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=8105
--- Comment #4 from Alex Balut alexandru.balut@gmail.com 2007-12-04 21:45:21 --- (In reply to comment #2)
The interesting point of this: it might have worked, if wine supports REG_EXPAND_SZ keys on %WINDIR%. I tested it by importing an REG_EXPAND_SZ Windir but it's ignored by wine. So this unearthed a wine deficiency too :) To fix this, restore the REG_SZ key after installation to "c:\windows".
This seems to be because the windir key you pointed is a REG_SZ key in Wine's registry. On W2000, it is REG_EXPAND_SZ. I'll make a patch tomorrow, should be trivial. There are a few other values which are in the same situation, I wonder whether I should check all the keys Wine creates..