WINE 10 is still not an emulator, but Windows apps won't know the difference
- Reference: 1737718511
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2025/01/24/wine_turns_10/
- Source link:
[1]WINE 10 is even more mature than it sounds. However, we fear that you may well have had your fill of vinological wordplay and it's probably turning bitter. This version improves the handling of multiple areas, including high-definition screens, defaulting to Wayland, running several different types of Arm code at once, and more.
The WINE project started in 1993, although 15 years of work followed before it hit version 1.0. Since [2]WINE 3 in 2018 , though, the project has released a major version annually. The Reg FOSS desk has looked at [3]WINE 7 , [4]WINE 8 , and [5]WINE 9 , should you want to refresh your memory on how it's shaping up.
[6]
Linux is a major platform these days, with more native applications than ever before – and of course WINE also supports macOS, FreeBSD, and NetBSD. Even so, most of these platforms have either dropped 32-bit support or are in the process of doing so. Windows 11, macOS, and most mainstream Linux distros are 64-bit only, and the next version of FreeBSD will be. Arm64 hardware is also getting increasingly common. This means WINE still has important uses. As well as running 64-bit apps on 64-bit systems, it also allows 32-bit Windows apps to run on pure 64-bit OSes – even OSes such as macOS that won't run their own old 32-bit binaries. WINE can also work with external x86-on-Arm emulators such as [7]FEX to run 32 and 64-bit Windows binaries on pure 64-bit Arm OSes.
[8]
WINE 10, with both Word 2003 and Word 97 running side-by-side, Control Panel, even a CMD prompt – click to enlarge
The developers have updated WINE 10's display support in multiple areas. If it finds Wayland, it uses it directly, although X11 still works. Support for next-gen OpenGL replacement Vulkan is now at parity with OpenGL, including rendering child windows. On high-definition displays, non-HiDPI apps are automatically rescaled. It has integrated support for Windows-style media decoding – now via GStreamer or FFMPEG – as well as .NET, MSHTML, JavaScript, and more.
[9]WINE 9.0 improves ability to run 32-bit Windows apps on 64-bit-only xNix
[10]Patches to make WINE work on Wayland display server protocol are being merged
[11]WINE Windows translation layer has matured like a fine... you get the picture
[12]Version 7 of WINE is better than ever at running Windows apps where they shouldn't
Support for Arm on Windows is complicated. As [13]we found in 2023 , there aren't that many fully Arm-native Windows apps yet. So, in addition to its all-native Arm64 ABI, Microsoft has another one called [14]Arm64EC for creating hybrid [15]Arm64X binaries , which allow a single process to contain a mixture of Arm64 and x86-64 code. It sounds horrendously complicated and inefficient to us, but either way, WINE 10 now supports this.
Aside from boring business apps, thanks to devices such as [16]Valve's Steam Deck in recent years and soon the [17]Lenovo Legion Go S , running AAA Windows games on Linux via [18]Steam OS has become fairly mainstream. That's helping improve WINE too.
[19]
There are now [20]nine months and counting until the end of Windows 10 support. A lot of people with Windows 10 PCs that can't upgrade will be looking for alternatives, and WINE 10 will be there to help them. ®
Get our [21]Tech Resources
[1] https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/releases/wine-10.0
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2018/01/19/wine_is_not_an_emulator_3/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/19/wine_7/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/03/wine_80_dxvk_21/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/18/wine_90_is_out/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Z5PHNBeb0I4Tip_FruDYWAAAABc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[7] https://fex-emu.com/
[8] https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/01/23/wine_10.jpg
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/01/18/wine_90_is_out/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/28/wine_support_wayland/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2023/02/03/wine_80_dxvk_21/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/19/wine_7/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/21/lenovo_thinkpad_x13s_the_stealth/
[14] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/arm64ec
[15] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/arm/arm64x-pe
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/21/lenovo_thinkpad_x13s_the_stealth/
[17] https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/coming-soon/coming_soon_laptops/legion-go-s/len106g0002
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/27/osseu_steam_os_3/
[19] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/oses&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Z5PHNBeb0I4Tip_FruDYWAAAABc&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[20] https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/14/final_year_windows_10/
[21] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Fat Shaming
You only page in what you need, so not a RAM issue.
Soooooo....
In what is the WINE equivalent of "Will it run DOOM?" on has to ask: Will it run the current versions of Office and Visual Studio?
Re: Soooooo....
> In what is the WINE equivalent of "Will it run DOOM?"
Well, presumably, it's to run Doom, which I am told it will do. Or Quake or Fortnight or whatever's cool now.
Office isn't an app. It's a suite, and it includes things that extend Windows, like a Sharepoint client and Onedrive and things. That won't work because you can't extend an OS that's not there.
If you want the main standalone local apps, then yes, I think it will run Word or Excel or PowerPoint. If you want Outlook or Access, which get clever with networking and talking to other computers, possibly not.
I have never used Visual Studio so I can't directly comment, but... probably?
MS is wise to it now. So, as a test, I tried to install OneNote.
(Disclaimer: I hate OneNote. I find it grotesquely over-complicated when I want something small, simple and fast for notes.)
OneNote is _allegedly_ free but you can't download it. All you get is a stub installer which goes online, tries to fetch a bunch of (I think) .NET stuff, and then install that on the fly and pass control to it, and that then downloads actual OneNote.
It did not work on WINE 10.
Re: Soooooo....
MS is wise to it now.
So Wine has replaced Lotus in "Windows ain't done 'til Lotus won't run" .
Re: Soooooo....
> So Wine has replaced Lotus in "Windows ain't done 'til Lotus won't run" .
"You might very well think that. I couldn't possibly comment."
;-)
Re: Soooooo....
Seems like the last version of the Office core apps (Excel, Powerpoint, Word) that kind of run is Office 2016... You may get lucky with Office 365 according to some reports but it can't be too reliable as Office 2024, 2021, and 2019 all seem to be incompatible.
Personally, I paid for a Crossover license to run Office 2016 as I couldn't get it to install or run without crashing with "normal" Wine or PlayOnLinux.
Re: Soooooo....
> Personally, I paid for a Crossover license to run Office 2016
I can believe that.
Back in 2017 I needed Crossover to run Office 2003, but as the screenshot shows, the only part I want -- Word -- now runs perfectly, including installing the Service Releases.
I did have to reinstall it -- vanilla WINE could not pick up and incorporate the version installed under CrossOver.
How well is Windows Recall supported?
A better Windows than Windows. Linux is doomed. DOOOMED!
(I tried to run WINE on a laptop with drivers from Nvidia. Oh my goodness! Was there now ever much lament. Apparently it works better with the open source drivers installed but I couldn't really come up with a use case to justify the effort. Initially I wanted to run the Foscam configuration software in Linux. But they are perfectly configurable if you don't mind using cURL and some [1]PDF documentation ).
[1] https://www.foscam.es/descarga/ipcam_cgi_sdk.pdf
Re: How well is Windows Recall supported?
My RTX3080 card is well supported with Nvidia drivers under Linux Mint. Got that working in no time. Proton makes many Steam games work. Now if only Linux would support my HP Reverb G2 VR headset...
Re: How well is Windows Recall supported?
I have a bunch of IP cameras around the place. I bought my first Foscam based on the reputation that "Foscams are great cameras". Once I realized that you needed a proprietary Chinese app to configure them, it went right back to the vendor. All of my other cameras can be configured easily through a browser.
Great on a Mac as well.
Its still (to me anyway) amazing to run a 32bit x86 windows executable on a modern arm Mac.
Wine...
...Windows Apps without Windows Whining.
Yes....But What About My Windows 3.1 (16-bit) Apps?
Well....I have an MS Multimedia Viewer CD. The software is on the CD, along with the actual multimedia content.
So everything is on the CD so that WINE can run the application and the data....all off the CD.
The Viewer software is dated October 1993.....so this solidly in Windows 3.1 territory.......
....and it runs today on WINE 10 like a champ!!!
OK, I'll bite
What is the use case these days for WINE that would make me want to use it instead of booting up a Windows VM, given these days of plenty of CPU/RAM/SSD?
Re: OK, I'll bite
Maybe: Licensing, activation issues, Microsoft pushing malware ads updates, etc.
Re: OK, I'll bite
> Maybe: Licensing, activation issues
Exactly.
With a VM, I need to:
* pay for a licence for the guest OS
* install the guest OS
* install drivers to integrate with the host
* set up shared folders etc.
* keep that guest OS up to date, separately and as well as the host OS
* possibly keep it clean from malware
With WINE I don't need any of them. No licence, no updates, no anti-malware because no significant malware risk. The app accesses my normal local screen, and my local filesystem, at full speed. I can resize, maximise, minimise, etc. windows like native ones. I can have different windows on different physical screens, without faffing around with guest multihead.
I only spend the RAM and CPU cycles of the app itself, not a guest OS. These days my main desktop has 32GB and my main testbed laptops 16GB and 24GB, but modern versions of Windows in a VM want more RAM than ever.
It's easier, it's faster, the integration is better, it's less work, and it's cheaper.
I have used Windows VMs under both macOS and Linux in the past -- this is one of the virtues of Virtualbox: the same VM works on both without migration or conversion -- but it's more work and I just don't need to any more.
I do still use VirtualBox for other things, but not for this.
WINE is actually getting closer to being an emulator. There is much discussion of integrating a (fast) x86 usermode emulator with it for platforms such as Apple aarch64.
Can I suggest a mention of Wine Bottles?
Excellent review btw :) Have one of these ->
Fat Shaming
...which allow a single process to contain a mixture of Arm64 and x86-64 code...
Fat binaries rear their (ugly) heads once more