Hi,
I'm looking for ways to install wine on a multi-user box so that hundreds of users can share the same base registry.
Username substitution would help in the registry processing. So when a flag is set for installing a global setting, registry keys written which include the username would instead put something like $username into the key.
I've found a way to do so, but I have only a small home computer and not hundrets of users.
I've put the C-Drive in /opt/windows, owned by root:root and writeable only by root. system.reg, dosdevices, userdef.reg and the config file are in /etc/wine. In the home directories, there's a .wine directory with individual user.reg directories and soft links to the files in /etc/wine. This way only root can install software and the users can't modify HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE(They can temporarily for themselves, but it won't be stored and the others are not affected. Furthermore I copy the applnk entries to a system wide directory(/usr/share/applnk/wine) and modify them manually so every user can see them in his start menu.
The major problem I have are those Apps which require full access to their install directories and installers which write required application settings to HKEY_CURRENT_USER. So basically the same problems as under Windows :-( Another thing is that even new applications do not really realize that I'm using the Administrator account if I am root, so that's why they install everything to HKEY_CURRENT_USER.
My hack works for a small system like mine, but I doubt it's possible for hundrets of users.
Stefan Dösinger