well, what I don't like too much is the time at process startup to look up for the correct file (if it exists). Especially if people start writing app specific files like rabbits. Couldn't we put a speed up in the file look up ? Something easy like naming the config file after the first letter of the application... (I know it'll break *foo.exe, but it shouldn't be too much of an issue).
another way could be have some additional (let's say ~/.wine/app-config/1database.txt) file which will contain <regular expression> --> <filename> mappings. that way wine have to open (and read) only that file, and we're able to do that pretty fast (as i found out when worked on registry patch). however, it has to evaluate all the reg. expressions at runtime, but that is linear dependency.
hmm, i don't know now. first letter or an additional file?
Future work may also include version information if available (think of winword.exe for example ; all of those are rather different apps)
well, this doesn't look easy, but we will have to handle it somehow. probably by the set of conditions (as the part of application database file) which allows you to do simple checks for files and maybe their content also in order to determine if it's the right version (so the file settings can be applied). however, as you said, it's something for future work.
regarding configuration, another point which really bugs me is also the content of the registry. I fear this is going to cause us lots of trouble in the future... and may be we'll need application specific keys in the registry...
for "wine with windows" it should work - registry will be there from windows partition. for "wine without windows" the install program should add them. and if it relies on some keys which aren't installed by installer, then those keys should be part of winedefault.reg file.
martin