Comment 10 for bug 84958

Regedit is more useful to end users on Wine than in Windows. Some applications need to have entries added to enable functions that improve performance or compatibility that can't be enabled from the applications themselves and are not added by their installer, For example, Warcraft3 needs registry entries to force the game to use OpenGL instead of DirectX else it's ugly and slow. There is no option within the game itself to enable it. While it's possible to enable it from the game's command line, Wine doesn't add it for the default menu entry. There have been some attempts at third-party installers for popular apps to handle these details but until they achieve support for a wide range of applications manual registry editing will be needed.

Wine File is still needed as it provides a standard Widows C: view of the file system that users understand. It is useful for gamers who want to install third-party add-ons or levels that require files to be copied to specific directories and are following instructions written for Windows Explorer. It also can be used as a workaround for broken desktop configurations that don't launch Wine correctly when a Windows exe file is opened. It's an ugly app but until someone comes up with a view template that allows Nautilus and other file managers to show a similar view of the .wine directory structure it's better than nothing.

Another issue is that Wine only adds menu entries for apps that actually create Windows menu or desktop lnk files. There are a lot of small games and apps that don't have installers. Wine File (or the desktop file managers) need an option to add a Wine link for a selected exe.

I agree that putting Notepad and Minesweeper in the same menu structure as other Windows app shortcuts makes sense. The help browser doesn't need an entry as long as it launches correctly when an hlp file is opened. CHM files can be handled by Gnome CHM (Vista doesn't support CHM anymore, LOL).