Wine is a translation layer (a program loader) capable of running Windows applications on Mac OS X, Linux and other POSIX compatible operating systems.

Windows programs running in Wine act as native programs would, with a similar look and feel to other applications on your desktop, running without the performance or memory usage penalties of an emulator.

Here are some key features of "Wine":

Binary Compatibility:
· Loads Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP, Windows 3.x and DOS programs and libraries
· Win32 compatible memory layout, exception handling, threads and processes
· Designed for POSIX compatible operatings systems (eg. Linux and FreeBSD)
· "bug-for-bug" compatibility with Windows

Graphics:
· X11-based graphics allows remote display to any X terminal
· X11, TrueType (.ttf/.ttc) and Windows Bitmap (.fon) Fonts
· DirectX support for games (limited Direct3D support)
· Support for OpenGL based games and applications
· Printing via PostScript driver or legacy native Win16 printer drivers
· Enhanced Metafile (EMF) and Windows Metafile (WMF) driver
· Desktop-in-a-box or mixable windows
· Windows MultiMedia (WinMM) layer support with builtin codecs

Allows Windows program to interface with:
· Sound devices via ALSA, OSS, ARTS, JACK, and libaudio etc
· Multi-lingual keyboards and CJK input method support via XIM
· Modems, serial devices
· Networks (TCP/IP and IPX)
· ASPI Scanners
· Windows Tablets via XInput (eg. Wacom)

Wine API:
· Designed for source and binary compatibility with Win32 code
· Win32 API test suite to ensure compatibility
· Compilable on a wide range of C compilers
· Permits mixing of Win32 and POSIX code
· Permits mixing of ELF (.so) and PE (.dll/.exe) binaries in one address space
· Win32 compatible header files
· Automatically generated API documentation
· Resource compiler
· Message compiler
· IDL compiler
· Extensive Unicode support
· Internationalization -- Wine supports 16 languages
· Built-in debugger and configurable trace messages
· External memory checker support using Valgrind
· Sample programs

What's New in This Release: [ read full changelog ]

· Gecko now installed at wineprefix creation time.
· Better support for certificates in crypt32.
· Improved sound support in mciwave.
· Some more Direct3D 10 functions.
· Many cleanups for issues spotted by Valgrind.
· Various bug fixes.