Miranda under Wine

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Linux is not a natively supported operating system, but Miranda is known to run on Linux under Wine.

Note
The following article was tested in Ubuntu 21.10.

Important
Miranda architecture (32- or 64-bit) must match the Linux distributive architecture. In the following examples, it is assumed that the architecture is x64.

OS Settings

BSD

To get CrashDumper plugin working you need to allow debugging for non-privileged users. This could be done by adding the following to sysctl:

security.bsd.unprivileged_proc_debug=1

Linux

Note
Starting from Wine 7.0 Miranda has been working with wine-stable. If you are using an earlier version of Wine, you need to install wine-staging.

Creating a separate Wine profile for Miranda

Create a separate directory for Wine to store its profile to work with Miranda:

mkdir -p $HOME/.wines/miranda/

If $HOME variable isn't defined, replace it with path to your profile:

mkdir -p /home/USER/.wines/miranda/

Initializing Wine profile

env WINEPREFIX=$HOME/.wines/miranda/ wine winecfg -v 2003

• Decline installing the stuff (It's not needed to run Miranda).

Installing Miranda NG

• Download archive containing Miranda NG 64-bit portable.
• Extract Miranda NG files to directory $HOME/.wines/miranda/drive_c/Miranda_NG/.

Starting Miranda NG

Sample script to start Miranda (you can save it as $HOME/.wines/miranda/drive_c/Miranda_NG/Miranda64.sh):

#!/bin/sh
cd $HOME/.wines/miranda/drive_c/Miranda_NG/

env WINEPREFIX=$HOME/.wines/miranda/ wine Miranda64.exe

Run script and enter the desired database name. Tick "Start in service mode with: Import" if you already have Miranda database (for example, from Windows system) and want to keep using it. Press Create button (and perform import from the old database if you choose import on the previous step).

Additional Wine settings

The following settings are not necessary, but may improve usability.

Opening folders in the system file manager

By default Wine opens the received files folder in its own explorer. You may find it more comfortable to view files that you receive from your contacts in your system file manager, e.g. when using MenuItemEx plugin.

• Create file $HOME/.wines/miranda/drive_c/windows/open_on_host_sys.sh with contents:

#!/bin/sh

xdg-open "`winepath -u \"$1\"`"

• Mark it as executable: chmod +x $HOME/.wines/miranda/drive_c/windows/open_on_host_sys.sh
• Run registry editor: env WINEPREFIX=$HOME/.wines/miranda/ wine regedit
• Create key (subsection) command in section HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\folder\shell\open
• In a created command key set default value: cmd /c start /b /min c:\windows\open_on_host_sys.sh "%1"

Pay attention to "cmd /c start" – the scripts won't run without it during testing.

If you have no xdg-open in your system, you can specify the name of your favorite file manager and the necessary run keys, e.g. thunar. If you do use xdg-open you can also associate any file type with its default system application.

Further reading

• Wine FAQ
• winepath
• Ask Ubuntu: How to associate all file types within Wine with its corresponding native application?
• Stack Overflow: Execute Shell Commands from Program running in WINE
• ShellExecute does not integrate well with external handlers

More about Wine

• Advanced Wine User Information
• Using Microsoft Windows 7 SDK on Linux
• Winetricks – a helper script to download and install various redistributable runtime libraries
• Wine HQ - Miranda NG - official bug tracker for Miranda NG on Wine