Make Wine use dll's taken from windows, if one has a license

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DavidXanatos
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Make Wine use dll's taken from windows, if one has a license

Post by DavidXanatos »

I was playing around with wine for a wile now, and it seams really buggy, for example I couldn't get WIn does SAPI 4 and 5 installed with the version of wine provided in crossover, the only combination i found to work was using play on linux with wine 1.7.


I know wine is intended to be a standalone execution environment for windows applications, but well its apparently missing to much.
So I was thinking for those people who still have a valid old windows license, it would be really great if wine would only provide a drop in replacement for the windows kernel, and allow the user to utilize the rest of the windows installation for better/full compatibility with windows applications.

So basically one would just copy the old windows and program files directories into a wine folder, run a tool to replace the kernel and drivers and voila. A castrated windows withing a Linux installation that would have a almost windows like level of compatibility with windows applications.


I understand that this may run afoul the ideology of using open source, but people who use windows applications don't care much for this they care about compatibility.

So what do you think?

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David X.
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dimesio
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Re: Make Wine use dll's taken from windows, if one has a lic

Post by dimesio »

I think people who want to run a "castrated" version of Windows under Linux can already do so in a VM.
DavidXanatos
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Re: Make Wine use dll's taken from windows, if one has a lic

Post by DavidXanatos »

dimesio wrote:I think people who want to run a "castrated" version of Windows under Linux can already do so in a VM.
Using a VM is more cumbersome also it costs 1 or 2 Gigs of memory so not great for laptop users.

One can see it also like this, having a fully working windows compatible platform can make developing an own platform easier, as you can develop drop in replacement dll's one by one and don't need to make changes at many places at once.

If what I'm suggesting is doable with not to much afford I think it would be worth a try.
Wine had since 2007 time to become compatible with windows 6.x but after over 10 years its still very much not really compatible with many more complex windows applications.
May be its time to try an other approach.

I see it like this, most users want or at least would appreciate it very much to be able to run windows applications without drawbacks, and also almost anyone who buys a Laptop or PC gets a Windows license included in the package. So why not make use of that?

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Bob Wya
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Re: Make Wine use dll's taken from windows, if one has a lic

Post by Bob Wya »

DavidXanatos wrote:...

I know wine is intended to be a standalone execution environment for windows applications, but well its apparently missing to much.

...
Well essentially your basic premise is wrong...

Wine is, and always has been, a translation layer.
It is not stand-alone and cannot be by design.
So unless you're planning to re-architect Wine from scratch to exclude X, alsa/pulseaudio, gstreamer, the Linux/BSD/Mach kernel, system libraries, etc. ... :lol:

Wine is a compromise that works for a lot of people.
Game support is great and getting better all the time. Desktop application support generally sucks.
The latter case should be filled by native applications IMHO.

Bob
DavidXanatos
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Re: Make Wine use dll's taken from windows, if one has a lic

Post by DavidXanatos »

Well than replace not just the kernel kernel32.dll and gdi32.dll and shell32.dll, simply put replace the minimum files needed to make the rest feal like home ;)
Bob Wya wrote:Desktop application support generally sucks.
Thats the problem
Bob Wya wrote:The latter case should be filled by native applications IMHO.
That is not realistic, there are for example no advanced CAD packets for linux like AutoCAD or SolidWorks, etc...

I understand the urge to push those large companies to support linux, but for now and for the foreseeable future Linux will not have enough pull to make them do anything.

And that is just one class of applications that for now will not have viable native alternatives.

If you want to promote Linux ensure better compatibility with windows desktop applications
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DarkShadow44
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Re: Make Wine use dll's taken from windows, if one has a lic

Post by DarkShadow44 »

That is not realistic, there are for example no advanced CAD packets for linux like AutoCAD or SolidWorks, etc...
Not too long ago, we didn't even have AAA games on linux. Today, some of them are. It takes a lot of time though.
If you want to promote Linux ensure better compatibility with windows desktop applications
By improving WINE, that's happening already. But windows is super complex and a moving target and has so much more money for development. It's hard.
But IMHO trying to get all the native DLLs to work is even more effort. using some for a specific case, sure, but all of them? God no.
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Re: Make Wine use dll's taken from windows, if one has a lic

Post by DavidXanatos »

Not too long ago, we didn't even have AAA games on linux. Today, some of them are. It takes a lot of time though.
The time won't get less by people not switching to linux cause they have some windows software they can not live without.
But IMHO trying to get all the native DLLs to work is even more effort.
Really?
As long as the kernel and some core DLL's behaves as it should all the other DLL's that work together and build up on each other should work fine without extra afford.
Or is that a misconception?

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Re: Make Wine use dll's taken from windows, if one has a lic

Post by DarkShadow44 »

The time won't get less by people not switching to linux cause they have some windows software they can not live without.
Sure, but you can already run a lot programs (like AutoCAD) on wine - it's just not as good as on windows yet, but I guess if dropping in DLLs would help, we already would have that as workarounds in the appdb.
As long as the kernel and some core DLL's behaves as it should all the other DLL's that work together and build up on each other should work fine without extra afford.
In theory, yes. But in practice they might need even more functions in the core dlls that are not implemented yet - or need services or kernel drivers.
I mean, you kinda can already do it - just copy the dlls from windows and add a dll override. But for me, that never turned out too well - unless it's for a specific issue. Why don't you try it?
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Bob Wya
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Re: Make Wine use dll's taken from windows, if one has a lic

Post by Bob Wya »

DavidXanatos wrote:...
As long as the kernel and some core DLL's behaves as it should all the other DLL's that work together and build up on each other should work fine without extra afford.
Or is that a misconception?
Yes.
In fact this is a total misconception.

These are the comments of someone who hasn't looked over the Wine codebase. :roll:
Wine Development has taken the "easy route" - but you wouldn't think so, by looking at the complexity of it!

You're are assuming that the WIN32API and newer API's in Windows are built in a sane way... Hint: they aren't.
It also took 1000's of Microsoft Engineers many person years, to produce this thing...

Reverse engineering and re-implementing the Windows API is already being attempted by ReactOS anyway.
This is a much harder project, than Wine. For a start it requires a real kernel (not somebody else's).
But you soon hit a brick wall, essentially one black box after another... This will eventually wear-down any developer!

Bob
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