Question on wine and bootcamp

[BlackStar44]

Hey guys im not very good with this mac and windows stuff, but i want to know if wineskins and bootcamp can both run on the same computer. My dad needs FAT32 for work, making it impossible to play games on his bootcamp. So can i download wine and play guild wars 2 on it without messing Anything up from bootcamp? Thanks.

[doh123]

Hey guys im not very good with this mac and windows stuff, but i want to know if wineskins and bootcamp can both run on the same computer. My dad needs FAT32 for work, making it impossible to play games on his bootcamp. So can i download wine and play guild wars 2 on it without messing Anything up from bootcamp? Thanks.

Bootcamp is just a utility that helps you install Windows in a dual boot... Programs running in OS X (like Wine) of course do not affect a different OS installed on a different partition, same as running Safari for web browsing in OS X doesn't affect web browsing in Windows that was set up using Bootcamp. You'd install your game and run it all over on OS X, and it wouldn't ever touch your Windows install... Wine is not Windows, and doesn't use anything from Windows. Don't try to have it access or run off the Windows (Bootcamp) partition.

Fat32 doesn't make it impossible to play games... just some games. Its an old file system and it cannot use single files larger than 4gb, and Guild Wars 2 is one of very few games that need file sizes larger than 4gb. Its strange you'd be running Windows on a fat32 partition anyways... not sure why that would be required "for work" or anything else, but I guess its possible. ExFat replaced Fat32 really, and doesn't have 4gb limitations, but I don't think its possible to use that for Windows installation drive.... heck Windows 7 can only install on NTFS, so I'm assuming your Bootcamp install is probably Windows XP.. I'm not sure if anything after XP can even install/run on Fat32.

All that said, you can *maybe* do this to play under Windows since GW2 can be very problematic with Wine still... get an external hard drive you can plug in, and format it ExFat (or NTFS, but ExFat is fully usable by Win/Mac/Linux, while NTFS can be more problematic). In Windows, install GW2 to that drive instead of the main hard drive, and you shouldn't have a 4gb limit file problem.

[ischou]

Couple of things worth mentioning to make sure you're clear on the concept:

Wine and Windows/Bootcamp/Dual Boot are two completely different things, and should be thought of as completely separate things.

If you have programs/games already installed on your Windows dual boot partition, you *MAY* be able to play them simply by asking Wine to run that program from where it is on the FAT32 partition and it *MIGHT* work perfectly fine. I experienced some problems with Wine sometimes being unable to write files to the FAT32 partition. No errors or crashes. Wine thought it wrote something (such as program preferences), but later I found that was not the case (restarted program, settings not saved). Interestingly, some file writes work fine while others don't for the exact same program (for instance "save as..." works, but "apply preferences" didn't). You might even sell your Dad on not having to reboot his Mac to get is work done.

Secondly, (and I can't stress this strongly enough) do not ever use your Windows FAT32 partition as your Wine's WINEPREFIX directory. If you do that, when you start up Wine, it will replace some of the Windows\System32 DLLs with wine's own version, which will cause Windows to fail to boot. So in answer to your main question, "Can I do this?" Not only can you, I think you have a stellar idea, since the FAT32 partition is important to be left untouched for your Dad's work, and I'm saying it's best to simply never let Wine touch your Windows installation. Simply don't do anything on Wine that touches your Dad's Windows installation on the FAT32 partition and everything will be great.

So in summary:

* Wine and dual boot Windows XP on a FAT32 partition can coexist perfectly well. (Exact set-up I have.)
* Wine MAY even be able to run some of the programs you have already installed on your Windows partition. (I do this.)
* Never ever simply "point" Wine at your Windows partition and assume all your previously installed programs will appear in Wine. This will break your Windows installation.

[BlackStar44]

Alright thanks guys!