WINE made notepad my default text viewer!

jeffk · Guru Joined: 13 Sep 2003 Posts: 568

O, the shame!

I used WINE to install a Windows application for testing recently, and since then, when browsing with Firefox, Epiphany or Midori, any text MIME content, e.g. program source code URL, opens with notepad as the default. You can choose another editor, but Notepad is always selected by default.

I'm using x11-wm/awesome, so I don't use many other parts of GNOME lately, and can't speak to other default-editor-ly settings that this might affect. I only notice the browser setting.

Where is the setting that controls this, so that I can expunge it?

A command line invocation of gconftool-2, or the name of the specific applet to access the setting would be most appreciated.

I have something similar to this with GIMP from time to time, it registers itself as the default PDF viewer for URLs PDF mime types. I'd like to remove that as the default selection, too.

Thanks.

sera · Developer Joined: 29 Feb 2008 Posts: 961 Location: CEST

You might wanna try something like

jeffk · Guru Joined: 13 Sep 2003 Posts: 568

Thanks for the tip, I had forgotten about .local. Turns out there was no grep match for notepad, but there was a bunch of MIME spew from WINE. The application I had installed must have been overzealous about file associations. It's unfortunate that the WINE environment isn't a self-contained sandbox against Windows installers.

I removed most of what was under .local, since the configuration accumulated there is largely for apps that I don't use anymore. I'll report back when I have more data on the notepad issue.

Thanks again.

Gentree · Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2012 4:26 pm Post subject:

Yes, I too would like to know what package was allowed to install some settings that lauch WINE automatically.

WINE is not a sandbox and the ONLY time I want it to run is when I explicitly start it myself.

An if I want to view a text file about the very last thing I would chose to do so would be a text EDITOR running under wine. The stupidest part of this is that firefox / opera etc are plenty capable of displaying plain text.

So two issues I'd like to fix are:

1) why isn't ffx opening the text itself ?

2) who the hell set up this WINE mess and how do I remove the linkage.

OK, so that's three.

I will open bugs on gentoo and what ever package thinks it's entitiled to introduce this kind of security risk once I understand fully what is happening. :evil:

Thanks for any help in fixing this.
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Linux, because I'd rather own a free OS than steal one that's not worth paying for.

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AthlonXP-M on A7N8X @ 2.6/2.4GHz (winter/summer)
2.6.32-hh1 : portage ~x86

Gentree · Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2012 4:28 pm Post subject:

BTW I have just started using Arduino and an item on its help menu invokes wine notepad too. Though it quickly crashes I suspect it may be trying to open a .hlp file.

_________________
Linux, because I'd rather own a free OS than steal one that's not worth paying for.

KX7-333 , AthlonXP1800+ @2.3GHz
AthlonXP-M on A7N8X @ 2.6/2.4GHz (winter/summer)
2.6.32-hh1 : portage ~x86

epsilon72 · Guru Joined: 20 Sep 2007 Posts: 530

I regularly go through ~/.local/share/applications and delete any unwanted .desktop files that wine puts there. I wish wine wouldn't automatically create those so often...

Gentree · Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2012 7:08 am Post subject:

What do you mean "so often". Is it doing that every time you run Wine or every time you update?

I'm getting close to removing Wine if it's doing that kind of shit. I may just make a quickpkg and reinstall on the occasions I need it. ie not often.

This is getting close to malware behaviour.

_________________
Linux, because I'd rather own a free OS than steal one that's not worth paying for.

KX7-333 , AthlonXP1800+ @2.3GHz
AthlonXP-M on A7N8X @ 2.6/2.4GHz (winter/summer)
2.6.32-hh1 : portage ~x86

epsilon72 · Guru Joined: 20 Sep 2007 Posts: 530

Gentree · Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2012 2:00 pm Post subject:

Aquous · l33t Joined: 08 Jan 2011 Posts: 619

A permanent solution to this issue is:

Gentree · Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2012 3:20 pm Post subject:

Thanks,

now I know what it's called I found other ways to stop it in WINE.

http://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#head-c847a3ded88bac0e61aae0037fa7dbd4c7ae042a

The bottom line for me is that I can no longer trust WINE devs.

I installed WINE in order to run one program in a controlled environment , not to authorise them to redesign my system, and more importantly CERTAINLY not to enable a windows program to start changing the configuration of my linux system.

This has to be about as dumb as it gets in installing malware vectors.

That this was sneaked into WINE without proir warming or my explicit confirmation means WINE is dead from my point of view.

It's out and it stays out.

When I have a spare minute I'll open a gentoo bug about this crap getting in as default , at least gentoo should take this out by default and make anyone who wants Windoze cruft screwing around with their Gentoo to explicitly enable this "feature".

Thanks for helping me find out exactly what was going on.

_________________
Linux, because I'd rather own a free OS than steal one that's not worth paying for.

KX7-333 , AthlonXP1800+ @2.3GHz
AthlonXP-M on A7N8X @ 2.6/2.4GHz (winter/summer)
2.6.32-hh1 : portage ~x86

Aquous · l33t Joined: 08 Jan 2011 Posts: 619

Wine is not (intended to be used as) an emulator, but rather a compatibility layer - it aims to make Windows software feel at as home as possible. (I agree with your point of view that this is a Bad Thing, but the average Joe will welcome his mission-critical Windows apps being integrated with Linux, and this might even increase his odds of ditching Windows altogether.)