Add multiple Windows prefix locations to WineGUI

[RichardJECooke]

I have lots of different Windows folders in different places - .wine, .snap, flathub somewhere, Bottles, Steam.

How do I get WineGUI to see them all please?

[melroy89]

The default wine directory: ~/.wine should already be visible in WineGUI by default.

Ideally try to create/place/move others as much as possible to folder: <home_folder>/.local/share/winegui/prefixes directory (notice that .local is hidden). This is the default directory.

If you didn't create any Windows machines in WineGUI, you can also consider changing the machine folder location at: File->Preferences and select another folder location were most of your Windows Bottles/Machines are located.

Finally, if you know how to work on command line, you can also use the ln -s command to create so called symbolic link under Linux. For example: ln -s /home/user/your-other-machine_folder /home/user/.local/share/winegui/prefixes/your-other-machine

In this last example a symbolic link will be created between the existing machine and the WineGUI prefixes location, without the need of moving your Windows Machine/Bottle.

[RichardJECooke]

Thanks. But you can't move cdrives out of their app. Bottles/snap/flatpak all place them in very specific folders. Hopefully one day there'll be a settings page in winegui where you can add existing. cdrives

[melroy89]

Thanks. But you can't move cdrives out of their app. Bottles/snap/flatpak all place them in very specific folders. Hopefully one day there'll be a settings page in winegui where you can add existing. cdrives

I understand, for now try to create a symbolic link via ln -s. I marked this issue has an enhancement now as well.

[melroy89]

Upstream ticket created: https://gitlab.melroy.org/melroy/winegui/-/issues/42

[RichardJECooke]

What does the machine folder do? You say consider changing the machine folder location. I moved my entire wine drive to my storage drive (/mnt/storage) because it needs to be 500GB. I don't see how changing the machine folder will allow winegui to see it.

[melroy89]

The machine folder location it the place where all wine bottles are stored and read.

So if you move your bottles to your other disk (within a specific directory).

You can change the machine folder location in winegui to point to a specific directory on that disk. From that moment forwards again the wine bottles are read and created on that new location.

[RichardJECooke]

Thanks. What is a bottle? Is that the same as a wine prefix?

But if my wine prefix is at /mnt/storage/wine and I make the machine folder location also /mnt/storage/wine, won't WineGUI pollute my Windows drive with all the WineGUI files? Should I make it the same folder?

[melroy89]

Yes bottle is the same as a wine prefix. And in winegui I just try to call it a windows machine to make it even easier to most people.

Yes you should create a directory on the top level indeed
Like /mnt/storage/prefixes. And you put all your prefixes within that prefixes directory.

[RichardJECooke]

Thanks again. But my question is since I already have the prefix, where should I point the machine folder to?

[melroy89]

I believe we went over this earlier.

You can either move the prefix. Or use a symbolic link (using ln) or just create a new bottle or a copy of your bottle.