wine and desktop launcher problem

[wesley]

Have an annoying issue that I've been unable to track down so far.

Running Redhat 9 with the latest version of Wine for a few Windows
programs. (In this particular situation, it is an older version of
Mastercook.)

If I open a terminal window and type in the appropriate command
(wine /home/wes/.wine/c/MSTRCOOK/MSTRCOOK.EXE)
the program opens perfectly and runs fine. (This is as the regular user
with the "$" prompt, not root.)

However, that's a pain to type and there are others in my family who use
this and other Windows programs who would likely have objections to
starting their programs with a command line interface.

So, simple enough, I thought, to add a desktop launcher to the standard
RH9 desktop. It doesn't work. I get an error that I need to insert the
program disk in drive "F" (which shows in the wine config file as %HOME%.)

Have double checked for typos. Program works fine under wine with a
command line terminal launch. Doesn't work under the desktop launcher.

Any clues? Thanks in advance.

[Paul Lutus]

wesley wrote:

< snip >

> Have double checked for typos. Program works fine under wine with a
> command line terminal launch. Doesn't work under the desktop launcher.
>
> Any clues? Thanks in advance.

Show us the contents of the desktop launcher's invocation line, and tell us
which user owns the desktop. You may be better off using a shell script
that sets things up just so, testing it, then launching the shell script
from the desktop launcher.

--
Paul Lutus
http://www.arachnoid.com

[wesley]

On Sat, 27 Sep 2003 22:46:16 -0700, Paul Lutus wrote:

> wesley wrote:
>
> < snip >
>
>> Have double checked for typos. Program works fine under wine with a
>> command line terminal launch. Doesn't work under the desktop launcher.
>>
>> Any clues? Thanks in advance.
>
> Show us the contents of the desktop launcher's invocation line, and tell us
> which user owns the desktop. You may be better off using a shell script
> that sets things up just so, testing it, then launching the shell script
> from the desktop launcher.

The launcher's invocation line is the same one I used in the terminal
screen: "wine /home/wes/.wine/c/MSTRCOOK/MSTRCOOK.EXE"

This system has only me as a user (besides root.) The desktop is owned by
me and I've checked permissions on the files involved, so those should be
OK.

Will try the shell script as suggested and see if it fixes the situation.
Thanks!

[wesley]

On Sat, 27 Sep 2003 22:46:16 -0700, Paul Lutus wrote:

> wesley wrote:
>
> < snip >
>
>> Have double checked for typos. Program works fine under wine with a
>> command line terminal launch. Doesn't work under the desktop launcher.
>>
>> Any clues? Thanks in advance.
>
> Show us the contents of the desktop launcher's invocation line, and tell us
> which user owns the desktop. You may be better off using a shell script
> that sets things up just so, testing it, then launching the shell script
> from the desktop launcher.

The launcher's invocation line is the same one I used in the terminal
screen: "wine /home/wes/.wine/c/MSTRCOOK/MSTRCOOK.EXE"

This system has only me as a user (besides root.) The desktop is owned by
me and I've checked permissions on the files involved, so those should be
OK.

Will try the shell script as suggested and see if it fixes the situation.
Thanks!

[wesley]

On Sat, 27 Sep 2003 19:55:53 -0500, wesley wrote:

> Have an annoying issue that I've been unable to track down so far.
>
> Running Redhat 9 with the latest version of Wine for a few Windows
> programs. (In this particular situation, it is an older version of
> Mastercook.)
>
> If I open a terminal window and type in the appropriate command
> (wine /home/wes/.wine/c/MSTRCOOK/MSTRCOOK.EXE)
> the program opens perfectly and runs fine. (This is as the regular user
> with the "$" prompt, not root.)
>
> However, that's a pain to type and there are others in my family who use
> this and other Windows programs who would likely have objections to
> starting their programs with a command line interface.
>
> So, simple enough, I thought, to add a desktop launcher to the standard
> RH9 desktop. It doesn't work. I get an error that I need to insert the
> program disk in drive "F" (which shows in the wine config file as
> %HOME%.)
>
> Have double checked for typos. Program works fine under wine with a
> command line terminal launch. Doesn't work under the desktop launcher.
>
> Any clues? Thanks in advance.

This is a follow-up answer to my own question.

Ending up with a working solution to the problem (though didn't fix the
underlying issue.)

Seems the root problem was a "Path" problem in the Windows configuration.
After much trial, the only way to reliably start the program was if the
"wine MSTRCOOK" command was given in the same directory that contained the
Windows program.

Never figured out if this was a Wine problem with its fake Windows setup
or a fault of a rather old (1993 - but very servicable) program. The
"install" of the program didn't write any info to the Windows' Registry,
so I think Wine was having trouble with the Path. A manual edit of the
..wine config file path info didn't help.

However, writing a basic script that changed directories before starting
the program with Wine solved the problem. Was then able to make a Desktop
Launcher that used the script with perfect results. (Thanks, Paul Lutus,
for the shell script suggestion. That worked once I figured out the
underlying Path issue.)

Hope this info helps someone else with Wine.