Chapter 3. Configuring Wine

Table of Contents
General Configuration
Win95/98 Look
Configuring the x11drv Driver
The Registry
Drive labels and serial numbers with wine
Dll Overrides
Keyboard

Setting up config files, etc.

General Configuration

Copyright 1999 Adam Sacarny (magicbox@bestweb.net)

(Extracted from wine/documentation/config)

The Wine Config File

The Wine config file stores various settings for Wine. These include:

  • Drives and Information about them

  • Directory Settings

  • Port Settings

  • The Wine look and feel

  • Wine's DLL Usage

How Do I Make One?

This section will guide you through the process of making a config file. Take a look at the file <dirs to wine>/wine.ini. It is organized by section.

Section NameNeeded?What it Does
[Drive X]yesSets up drives recognized by wine
[wine]yesSettings for wine directories
[DllDefaults]recmdDefaults for loading DLL's
[DllPairs]recmdSanity checkers for DLL's
[DllOverrides]recmdOverides defaults for DLL loading
[options]noNo one seems to know
[fonts]yesFont appearance and recognition
[serialports]noCOM ports seen by wine
[parallelports]noLPT ports seen by wine
[spooler]noPrint spooling
[ports]noDirect port access
[spy]noWhat to do with certain debug messages
[Registry]noSpecifies locations of windows registry files
[tweak.layout]recmdAppearance of wine
[programs]noPrograms to be run automatically
[Console]noConsole settings

The [Drive X] Section

It should be pretty self explanatory, but here is an in-depth tutorial about them. There are up to 6 lines for each drive in Wine.

[Drive X]
The above line begins the section for a drive whose letter is X.

Path=/dir/to/path
This path is where the drive will begin. When Wine is browsing in drive X, it will see the files that are in the directory /dir/to/path. Don't forget to leave off the trailing slash!

Type=floppy|hd|cdrom|network <--- the |'s mean Type=<one of the options>
            

Sets up the type of drive Wine will see it as. Type must equal one of the four floppy, hd, cdrom, or network. They are self-explanatory.

Label=blah
Defines the drive label. Generally only needed for programs that look for a special CD-ROM. Info on finding the lable is in <dirs to wine>/documentation/cdrom-labels. The label may be up to 11 characters.

Serial=deadbeef
Tells Wine the serial number of the drive. A few programs with intense protection for pirating might need this, but otherwise don't use it. Up to 8 characters and hexadecimal.

Filesystem=msdos|win95|unix
Sets up the way Wine looks at files on the drive.

msdos

Case insensitive filesystem. Alike to DOS and Windows 3.x. 8.3 is the maximum length of files (eightdot.123) - longer ones will be truncated. (NOTE: this is a very bad choice if you plan on running apps that use long filenames. win95 should work fine with apps that were designed to run under the msdos system. In other words, you might not want to use this.)

win95

Case insensitive. Alike to Windows 9x/NT 4. This is the long filename filesystem you are probably used to working with. The filesystem of choice for most applications to be run under wine. PROBABLY THE ONE YOU WANT!

unix

Case sensitive. This filesystem has almost no use (Windows apps expect case insensitive filenames). Try it if you dare, but win95 is a much better choice.

Device=/dev/xx

Use this ONLY for floppy and cdrom devices. Using it on Extended2 partitions can have dire results (when a windows app tries to do a lowlevel write, they do it in a FAT way -- FAT does not mix with Extended2).

Note: This setting is not really important; almost all apps will have no problem if it remains unspecified. For CD-ROMs you might want to add it to get automatic label detection, though. If you are unsure about specifying device names, just leave out this setting for your drives.

Here is a setup for Drive X, a generic hard drive:
[Drive X]
Path=/dos-a
Type=hd
Label=Hard Drive
Filesystem=win95
This is a setup for Drive X, a generic CD-ROM drive:
[Drive X]
Path=/dos-d
Type=cdrom
Label=Total Annihilation
Filesystem=win95
Device=/dev/hdc
And here is a setup for Drive X, a generic floppy drive:
[Drive X]
Type=floppy
Path=/mnt/floppy
Label=Floppy Drive
Serial=87654321
Filesystem=win95
Device=/dev/fd0
            

The [wine] Section

The [wine] section of the configuration file contains information wine uses for directories. When specifying the directories for the settings, make them as they would appear in wine. If your drive C has a path of /dos, and your windows directory is located in /dos/windows, then use:
Windows=c:\windows

This sets up the windows directory. Make one if you don't already have one. NO TRAILING SLASH (NOT C:\windows\)!

System=c:\windows\system
This sets up where the windows system files are. Should reside in the directory used for the Windows setting. If you don't have windows then this is where the system files will go. Again, NO TRAILING SLASH!

Temp=c:\temp
This should be the directory you want your temp files stored in. YOU MUST HAVE WRITE ACCESS TO IT.

Path=c:\windows;c:\windows\system;c:\blanco
            

Behaves like the PATH setting on UNIX boxes. When wine is run like wine sol.exe, if sol.exe resides in a directory specified in the Path setting, wine will run it (Of course, if sol.exe resides in the current directory, wine will run that one). Make sure it always has your windows directory and system directory (For this setup, it must have c:\windows;c:\windows\system).

SymbolTableFile=wine.sym
Sets up the symbol table file for the wine debugger. You probably don't need to fiddle with this. May be useful if your wine is stripped.

printer=off|on
Tells wine whether to allow printer drivers and printing to work. Using these things are pretty alpha, so you might want to watch out. Some people might find it useful, however. If you're not planning on working on printing, don't even add this to your wine.ini (It probably isn't already in it). Check out the [spooler] and [parallelports] sections too.

Introduction To DLL Sections

There are a few things you will need to know before configuring the DLL sections in your wine configuration file.

Windows DLL Pairs

Most windows DLL's have a win16 (Windows 3.x) and win32 (Windows 9x/NT) form. The combination of the win16 and win32 DLL versions are called the "DLL pair". This is a list of the most common pairs:

Win16Win32 Native [a]
KERNELKERNEL32No!
USERUSER32No!
SHELLSHELL32Yes
GDIGDI32No!
COMMDLGCOMDLG32Yes
VERVERSIONYes
Notes:
a. Is it possible to use native dll with wine? (See next section)

Different Forms Of DLL's

There are a few different forms of DLL's wine can load:

native

The DLL's that are included with windows. Many windows DLL's can be loaded in their native form. Many times these native versions work better than their non-Microsoft equivalent -- other times they don't.

elfdll

ELF encapsulated windows DLL's. This is currently experimental (Not working yet).

so

Native ELF libraries. Will not work yet.

builtin

The most common form of DLL loading. This is what you will use if the DLL is error-prone in native form (KERNEL for example), you don't have the native DLL, or you just want to be Microsoft-free.

The [DllDefaults] Section

These settings provide wine's default handling of DLL loading.

EXTRA_LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/dirs

The directory specified here is appended to the normal search path for certain forms of DLL's (elfdll and .so).

DefaultLoadOrder = native, elfdll, so, builtin

This setting is a comma-delimited list of which order to attempt loading DLL's. If the first option fails, it will try the second, and so on. The order specified above is probably the best in most conditions.

The [DllPairs] Section

This section is optional, but strongly recommended. If you try to use native SHELL32, but builtin SHELL, you could have some big problems (native and builtin/so/elfdll do certain things in different ways). Using different forms of a pair is a *very*, **very** bad idea. By specifying DLL pairs here, wine will print out a message if you use different forms of a pair. You shouldn't need to change anything in this section, the following should work fine in all cases:

[DllPairs]
kernel	= kernel32
gdi	= gdi32
user	= user32
commdlg	= comdlg32
commctrl= comctl32
ver	= version
shell	= shell32
lzexpand= lz32
winsock	= wsock32
          

The [DllOverrides] Section

The format for this section is the same for each line:
<DLL>{,<DLL>,<DLL>...} = <FORM>{,<FORM>,<FORM>...}
            

For example, to load builtin KERNEL pair (Case doesn't matter here):
kernel,kernel32 = builtin
            

To load the native COMMDLG pair, but if that doesn't work try builtin:
commdlg,comdlg32 = native,builtin
            

To load the native COMCTL32:
comctl32 = native
            

Here is a good generic setup (As it is defined in wine.ini that was included with your wine package):
[DllOverrides]
kernel32, gdi32, user32	= builtin
kernel, gdi, user	= builtin
toolhelp		= builtin
comdlg32, commdlg	= elfdll, builtin, native
version, ver		= elfdll, builtin, native
shell32, shell		= builtin, native
lz32, lzexpand		= builtin, native
commctrl, comctl32	= builtin, native
wsock32, winsock	= builtin
advapi32, crtdll, ntdll	= builtin, native
mpr, winspool		= builtin, native
ddraw, dinput, dsound	= builtin, native
winmm, w32skrnl, msvfw32= builtin
wnaspi32, wow32		= builtin
system, display, wprocs	= builtin
wineps			= builtin
            

Note: You see that elfdll or so is the first option for a few of these dll's. This will fail for you, but you won't notice it as wine will just use the second or third option.

The [options] Section

No one seems to know what this section is...

AllocSystemColors=100
            
System colors to allocate? Just leave it at 100.

The [fonts] Section

This section sets up wine's font handling.

Resolution = 96

Since the way X handles fonts is different from the way Windows does, wine uses a special mechanism to deal with them. It must scale them using the number defined in the "Resolution" setting. 60-120 are reasonable values, 96 is a nice in the middle one. If you have the real windows fonts available (<dirs to wine>/documentation/ttfserver and fonts), this parameter will not be as important. Of course, it's always good to get your X fonts working acceptably in wine.

Default = -adobe-times-
The default font wine uses. Fool around with it if you'd like.

OPTIONAL:

The Alias setting allows you to map an X font to a font used in wine. This is good for apps that need a special font you don't have, but a good replacement exists. The syntax is like so:
AliasX = [Fake windows name],[Real X name]<,optional "masking" section>
            

Pretty straightforward. Replace "AliasX" with "Alias0", then "Alias1" and so on. The fake windows name is the name that the font will be under a windows app in wine. The real X name is the font name as seen by X (Run "xfontsel"). The optional "masking" section allows you to utilize the fake windows name you define. If it is not used, then wine will just try to extract the fake windows name itself and not use the value you enter.

Here is an example of an alias without masking. The font will show up in windows apps as "Google". When defining an alias in a config file, forget about my comment text (The "<-- blah" stuff)
Alias0 = Foo,--google-      <-- Note the no spaces after the " = ". Important!
            

Here is an example with masking enabled. The font will show up as "Foo" in windows apps.
Alias1 = Foo,--google-,subst 
            

For more info check out <dirs to wine>/documentation/fonts

The [serialports], [parallelports], [spooler], and [ports] Sections

Even though it sounds like a lot of sections, these are all closely related. They all are for communications and parallel ports.

The [serialports] section tells wine what serial ports it is allowed to use.
ComX=/dev/cuaY

Replace X with the number of the COM port in Windows (1-8) and Y with the number of it in X (Usually the number of the port in Windows minus 1). ComX can actually equal any device (/dev/modem is acceptable). It is not always necessary to define any COM ports (An optional setting). Here is an example:
Com1=/dev/cua0

Use as many of these as you like in the section to define all of the COM ports you need.

The [parallelports] section sets up any parallel ports that will be allowed access under wine.
LptX=/dev/lpY

Seem farmiliar? Syntax is just like the COM port setting. Replace X with a value from 1-4 as it is in Windows and Y with a value from 0-3 (Y is usually the value in windows minus 1, just like for COM ports). You don't always need to define a parallel port (AKA, it's optional). As with the other section, LptX can equal any device (Maybe /dev/printer). Here is an example:
Lpt1=/dev/lp0

The [spooler] section will inform wine where to spool print jobs. Use this if you want to try printing. Wine docs claim that spooling is "rather primitive" at this time, so it won't work perfectly. IT IS OPTIONAL. The only setting you use in this section works to map a port (LPT1, for example) to a file or a command. Here is an example, mapping LPT1 to the file out.ps:
LPT1:=out.ps

The following command maps printing jobs to LPT1 to the command lpr. Notice the |:
LPT1:=|lpr

The [ports] section is usually useful only for people who need direct port access for programs requiring dongles or scanners. IF YOU DON'T NEED IT, DON'T USE IT!

read=0x779,0x379,0x280-0x2a0
Gives direct read access to those IO's.

write=0x779,0x379,0x280-0x2a0
Gives direct write access to those IO's. It probably a good idea to keep the values of the read and write settings the same. This stuff will only work when you're root.

The [spy], [Registry], [tweak.layout], and [programs] Sections

[spy] is used to Include or exclude debug messages, and to output them to a file. The latter is rarely used. THESE ARE ALL OPTIONAL AND YOU PROBABLY DON'T NEED TO ADD OR REMOVE ANYTHING IN THIS SECTION TO YOUR CONFIG.

File=/blanco
Sets the logfile for wine. Set to CON to log to standard out. THIS IS RARELY USED.

Exclude=WM_SIZE;WM_TIMER;
Excludes debug messages about WM_SIZE and WM_TIMER in the logfile.

Include=WM_SIZE;WM_TIMER;
Includes debug messages about WM_SIZE and WM_TIMER in the logfile.

[Registry] can be used to tell wine where your old windows registry files exist. This section is completely optional and useless to people using wine without an existing windows installation.

UserFileName=/dirs/to/user.reg
The location of your old user.reg file.

LocalMachineFileName=/dirs/to/system.reg
The location of your old system.reg file.

[tweak.layout] is devoted to wine's look. There is only one setting for it.

WineLook=win31|win95|win98
Will change the look of wine from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95. The win98 setting behaves just like win95 most of the time.

[programs] can be used to say what programs run under special conditions.

Default=/program/to/execute.exe
Sets the program to be run if wine is started without specifying a program.

Startup=/program/to/execute.exe
Sets the program to automatically be run at startup every time.

Where Do I Put It?

The wine config file can go in two places.

/usr/local/etc/wine.conf

A systemwide config file, used for anyone who doesn't have their own.

$HOME/.winerc

Your own config file, that only is used for your user.

So copy your version of the wine.conf file to /usr/local/etc/wine.conf or $HOME/.winerc for wine to recognize it.

What If It Doesn't Work?

There is always a chance that things will go wrong. If the unthinkable happens, try the newsgroup, comp.emulators.ms-windows.wine Make sure that you have looked over this document thoroughly, and have also read:

  • README

  • documentation/bugreports

  • http://www.westfalen.de/witch/wine-HOWTO.txt (Optional but recommended)

If indeed it looks like you've done your research, be prepared for helpful suggestions. If you haven't, brace yourself for heaving flaming.