wine

Run a specific program inside the wine environment

$ wine [command]

$ wine start [command]

$ wine msiexec /i [path/to/package.msi]

$ wine msiexec /x [path/to/package.msi]

$ wine [explorer|notepad|write]

$ wine [regedit|control|taskmgr]

$ wine winecfg

wine [options] program [arguments]

wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) runs Windows applications on Unix-like operating systems by translating Windows API calls into POSIX calls in real-time. It implements the Windows runtime environment without requiring a Windows license or virtual machine.
Wine creates isolated "prefixes" (virtual C: drives) containing Windows directory structure, registry, and installed programs. Each prefix can be configured independently with different Windows versions and settings via winecfg.

winecfg

Open Wine configuration dialog

Open Wine Registry Editor

Open Wine Control Panel

Open Wine File Explorer

Open Wine Task Manager

Install MSI package

Uninstall MSI package

Run program in background (detached)

Display Wine version

Environment variable to specify Wine prefix directory

Environment variable for debug output

Not all Windows software works; check the Wine Application Database (AppDB) for compatibility. Some applications require additional runtime libraries installed via winetricks. 32-bit support may need to be enabled separately on 64-bit systems.

Development began in 1993 by Bob Amstadt and Eric Youngdale, making Wine one of the oldest continuous free software projects. The recursive backronym "Wine Is Not an Emulator" emphasizes that Wine reimplements Windows APIs rather than emulating hardware. Major milestones include Wine 1.0 in 2008 and version 9.0 in 2024.

winetricks(1), winecfg(1)