Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X and Unix.

Think of Wine as a compatibility layer for running Windows programs. Wine does not require Microsoft Windows, as it is a completely free alternative implementation of the Windows API consisting of 100% non-Microsoft code, however Wine can optionally use native Windows DLLs if they are available. Wine provides both a development toolkit for porting Windows source code to Unix as well as a program loader, allowing many unmodified Windows programs to run on x86-based Unixes, including Linux, FreeBSD, and Solaris.

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)
· 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 ]

· Better support for memory allocations debugging.
· Improved MIDI support.
· A wide range of Direct3D fixes.
· OLEDB fixes (should fix Clipart in Office).
· Improved debugger support on x86-64.
· Many MSI fixes.
· Various bug fixes.