Viewing topic Hot Tip! Disable Wine app menu integration to keep your application launcher clean

Title: Hot Tip! Disable Wine app menu integration to keep your application launcher clean

ridge 12 Mar 2023

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Note: This is written from the perspective of a KDE Plasma user using Lutris. I have no idea how this affects GNOME, Xfce, Sway, LXQt or other setups. From what I can gather, you can set DLL overrides in Bottles as well, just poke around for a similar option there if you use that.

One of my big pet peeves when it comes to Wine is how installing Windows software will also create application launcher entries.

If you set this environment variable, Wine will disable the "menu builder" that does this.

WINEDLLOVERRIDES=winemenubuilder.exe=d

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You can set this in your environment variables, such as /home/user/.config/environment.d/envvars.conf, and also in Lutris. I set them in both just to be sure.

To set this in Lutris: Open Lutris, click on the "hamburger" menu in the top right then "Preferences". Click "Runners" and scroll down to Wine. Click the config icon to the left of the cardboard box icon, then scroll down to "DLL overrides". In "key", add an entry for "winemenubuilder.exe", in the box to the right enter "d". Remember to click "Save".
Here's a screenshot showing how it should look:

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Setting that variable here will set it as default for every Wine game you add and install in Lutris.

Why?
If you're like me, you prefer to make entries for Windows software yourself, or not at all. It should also prevent Wine from creating entries for its implementation of notepad.exe and other apps, which has the added benefit of it not hijacking filetype associations.

I install all my Windows games in separate Wine prefixes, and I keep entries for all of them in Lutris. So I don't want them showing up in my application launcher, I launch Lutris, the game, and that will be that.

Was a nice little surprise to discover this could be disabled, so hopefully this helps someone else as well :)

Last edited by ridge on 18 Mar 2023 at 7:40 pm UTC

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whizse 12 Mar 2023

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In the past I have just nuked ~/.local/share/applications/wine/ every once in a while, but this is much easier. Thanks for the advice!

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ridge 12 Mar 2023

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Quoting: whizseIn the past I have just nuked ~/.local/share/applications/wine/ every once in a while, but this is much easier. Thanks for the advice!

Same, I got pretty tired of that. I actually discovered this envvar while I was about to start writing a script that would nuke it for me on every boot :P
Glad it helped.

Last edited by ridge on 12 Mar 2023 at 8:53 pm UTC

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BlackBloodRum 13 Mar 2023

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That's one option, the other option is to run wine applications within a sandboxed wine, for example using Bottles or Lutris. Then they still get created, just not within your home directory so they don't clutter things up.

Plus being sandboxed you can disable networking and such too. :smile:

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ridge 13 Mar 2023

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Quoting: BlackBloodRumThat's one option, the other option is to run wine applications within a sandboxed wine, for example using Bottles or Lutris. Then they still get created, just not within your home directory so they don't clutter things up.

Plus being sandboxed you can disable networking and such too. :smile:

I never got that to work for some reason, I've set all my Wine prefixes that are managed by Lutris to be sandboxed, but they would still create application menu entries in my Kickoff menu (the default KDE application launcher that appears when you press the meta key).

Nonetheless also a good thing to keep in mind!

Last edited by ridge on 13 Mar 2023 at 12:07 pm UTC

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BlackBloodRum 13 Mar 2023

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Quoting: ridge
Quoting: BlackBloodRumThat's one option, the other option is to run wine applications within a sandboxed wine, for example using Bottles or Lutris. Then they still get created, just not within your home directory so they don't clutter things up.

Plus being sandboxed you can disable networking and such too. :smile:
I never got that to work for some reason, I've set all my Wine prefixes that are managed by Lutris to be sandboxed, but they would still create application menu entries in my Kickoff menu (the default KDE application launcher that appears when you press the meta key).

Nonetheless also a good thing to keep in mind!

Just do be clear, was Lutris itself sandboxed? What I meant was to run Lutris (or bottles) within Flatpak. Then simply revoke full filesystem access and only permit directories you have game installers and/or want to install games to.

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ridge 14 Mar 2023

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Quoting: BlackBloodRumJust do be clear, was Lutris itself sandboxed?

AH! No, that's what escaped me. I don't use Flatpaks or Snaps, so I don't have such fine-grained control. But that's a neat trick to keep in mind if I ever need it.

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