Install Different Versions of Wine

**whatspaz** · July 7th, 2009

Hey guys! So last night I got bored and decided to work on this program idea I've been kicking around for a while. After hours of careful editing, I have a workable script that I am going to call "wine-age". The idea is simple, some wine is better if it is aged.

Now, where did I get this idea? It would seem some applications are broken in newer versions of wine (specifically, I'm having trouble installing Office 2007). I don't want to install an old version just for one program. Wow, what a dilemma! Alas, wine-age to the rescue. It will download files from here http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/archive/index.html and put them in a special folder here ~/.wine-age/. How nice!

How to use it:
1. Download it.
2. chmod +x it.
3. Run it under the terminal (don't elevate to root), use --help for command line options. Works almost like winetricks.
4. Check off the version you want/need/think you want/need. Click OK.
5. You can now run the installed version of wine.

Suspected issues:
o I wouldn't try it out under KDE/Qt. It may be broken, I don't have KDE to test it; so idk.

The wine versions will be installed at ~/.wine-age/. The wine executable files are installed at ~/.wine-age/*/usr/bin. The wine libraries are installed at ~/.wine-age/*/usr/{lib,lib32}.

So, for this to be useful, you will need to invoke the specific wine versions by setting some environment variables, see here: http://www.winehq.org/site/docs/wine.

WINEPREFIX=<your wine prefix> \
WINESERVER=~/.wine-age/<version>/usr/bin/wineserver \
WINELOADER=~/.wine-age/<version>/usr/bin/wine \
32 bit:
WINEDLLPATH=~/.wine-age/<version>/usr/lib/wine \
*OR*
64 bit:
WINEDLLPATH=~/.wine-age/<version>/usr/lib32/wine \
~/.wine-age/<version>/usr/bin/wine \
<command line>

example:
WINEPREFIX=~/.wine \
WINESERVER=~/.wine-age/jaunty_wine1_1_25_amd64/usr/bin/wineserver \
WINELOADER=~/.wine-age/jaunty_wine1_1_25_amd64/usr/bin/wine \
WINEDLLPATH=~/.wine-age/jaunty_wine1_1_25_amd64/usr/lib32/wine \
~/.wine-age/jaunty_wine1_1_25_amd64/usr/bin/wine \
"Notepad.exe"

I think it should take some of the labor out of making new wine do old tricks. Your mileage may vary.

Peace Love Spaz!

**cogadh** · July 7th, 2009

Not to rain on your parade, but there are already apps that do this, like PlayOnLinux, though it is nice to have something that just does this and no more.