Wine 7.16 includes many bug fixes for software designed to run on Windows. Several issues with games are fixed as well, which will surely make Linux users happy. As the developers used to point out in the past, Wine “is not an emulator” but an open-source compatibility layer for users that need to run Windows software on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems. The “trick” behind the magic: Wine implements the Windows API by using 100% non-Microsoft code, even though users can provide external DLL files – even the ones included with Windows.
The Wine 7.16 release highlights include Wow64 (Microsoft’s 64-bit compatibility layer for 32-bit applications) support in X11 driver, session storage in MSHTML, Unicode regexp fixes in MSXML, IME improvements in edit control and “various bug fixes.” The complete list of fixes is indeed huge, gathering the work by several Wine developers since the previous 7.15 release. The most interesting bug fixes are, of course, the gaming-related ones: Wine solves a crash issue with Saint’s Row, a false positive for Ragnarok Online anti-cheat technology, a bug that made playing Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain past chapter one impossible, and a freeze bug in Star Citizen’s launcher. Wine features include compatibility with Win64, Win32, Win16 and DOS, DirectX support, printing and a full-featured debugger. Wine is also an essential component of Proton, the compatibility layer used by Valve in its Steam Deck console’s operating system (SteamOS).
