How to create a functional symlink of a Windows application?

[sagirfahmid3]

Hello everyone, I have a (simple) question.

I have a harddrive named "Windows_7" auto mounted on bootup with read/write privileges.
It is located (mounted) in /media/Windows_7
The application executable that I am trying to run (GTA San Andreas) is located in:

/media/Windows_7/Users/sagir3/Documents/GTA_SA/gta_sa.exe

What I'm trying to do is create a functional symlink so I can run the game (or any app) directly off the other harddrive instead of copying them to my Linux partition to make WINE run them (it just wastes a lot of space IMO).

What I tried already was:
ln -s /media/Windows_7/Users/sagir3/Documents/GTA_SA/gta_sa.exe /home/sagir3/ #Symlink to home folder

then I did:
wine gta_sa.exe #This is the shortcut to gta_sa.exe on my Windows drive

and I encountered many errors:
err:module:import_dll Library vorbisfile.dll (which is needed by L"Z:\\home\\this\\gta_sa.exe") not found
err:module:import_dll Library EAX.DLL (which is needed by L"Z:\\home\\this\\gta_sa.exe") not found
err:module:LdrInitializeThunk Main exe initialization for L"Z:\\home\\this\\gta_sa.exe" failed, status c0000135

So I am guessing this method of creating a symlink doesn't play nice with WINE. Could someone kindly instruct me which method of creating a symlink would work? My goal is to make WINE work with an application present on another harddrive, by creating some type of shortcut, instead of copying everything to my Linux partition to make them work.

(P.S. I am running WINE 1.4.1 compiled on Debian Squeeze; it works with GTASA perfectly)

[L. Rahyen]

What I'm trying to do is create a functional symlink so I can run the game (or any app) directly off the other harddrive instead of copying them to my Linux partition to make WINE run them (it just wastes a lot of space IMO).

Creating symlink does not magically move all necessary files and registry entries to their proper places. Think of Wine prefix like separate Windows installation.

You have to install the game in Wine (you have to install it in fresh Windows installation too, this is just the way it is: you cannot run it without installing it first and expect it to work). Then make sure it works, and after that you can remove some big files/directories and replace them with symbolic links. However, it may not be trivial in some cases and may lead to unexpected problems, so it is much easier to buy modern HDD so you have enough free space for your game(s). Alternatively, if the game works good enough in Wine, uninstall it in Windows to save disk space.

[sagirfahmid3]

Thanks for the reply. Actually I have more than enough space (out of 760GB total, I have only used around 140GB). I'll just move it over to my Linux harddrive instead. I only use Windows for Photoshop and a few other games (Crysis 2, Dead Space, Spore, etc).

[L. Rahyen]

You may want to check AppDB for suggestions how to run Photoshop and other applications/games you interested in: according to AppDB, Wine runs all applications you mentioned. Of course, it is possible you already know this and some performance issues or bugs stop you from using Wine for some applications/games.