Running Windows software from drive with Windows installed?

[hiigaran]

I have three drives in my computer; one SSD for Ubuntu, and two HDDs in RAID0 with Windows. Is it possible to run any software on the HDDs through Ubuntu with WINE by mounting the array to "WINEPREFIX/drive_c"?

For anyone asking why I would needlessly complicate things, it's because everything obviously works properly with Windows. I currently dual boot, switching systems as required. My idea was to test each new version of WINE until the software I want to run can be done without issues, after which, I could migrate the software to my Ubuntu drive.

Something tells me this would not be possible though. Anyone able to prove me wrong?

[jkfloris]

This is a bad idea. If you mount and run Wine with an existing Windows installation you will ruin your Windows registry.

[dimesio]

Specifically, Wine will overwrite the real Windows registry with its fake registry, and the only way to fix it will be to reinstall Windows. https://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#I_have_lots ... in_Wine.3F

[hiigaran]

I figured it sounded too simple. I take it there's no way to point WINE to another location for the registry files with a symlink or something? Or would that just cause a whole heap of confusion for files when I switch back to running Windows natively?

[DarkShadow44]

Specifically, Wine will overwrite the real Windows registry with its fake registry, and the only way to fix it will be to reinstall Windows.

Since wine uses different paths for the registry, I highly doubt this will be the case. You will however overwrite a bunch of critical DLLs, breaking windows for good.

You can run programs that are installed on windows why just running them from their folder. I do that all the time, but that's not recommended and often won't work - since they require being installed properly.