Winetricks Tutorial for Beginners

What is winetricks

Winetricks is a helper script to download and install various redistributable runtime libraries needed to run some applications, and games in Wine. These may include replacements for components of Wine using closed source libraries. It can also be used to change Wine settings.

There are also applications and games that can be downloaded and installed using Winetricks.

The main window of winetricks

The main window of winetricks has 7 different options (After choosing an option, you need to press OK to confirm your choice)

View help

After choosing this options, you will be redirected to winetricks' github page.

Install an application

After choosing this options, a new window will open with more than 60 applications to choose from, some of these applications are old, so check the year column first. In addition to that, some of these applications requires using 32bit wineprefix which can be created by following this steps » [link]

Install a benchmark

After choosing this options, a new window will open with more than 8 benchmark applications to choose from. After choosing the application you want to install and pressing OK, winetricks will download and install this application.

Install a game

After choosing this options, a new window will open with more than 80 games to choose from.

Select the default wineprefix

After choosing this options, a new window will open with 11 options to choose from

Install a Windows DLL or component

After choosing this option, a new windows will open with various redistributable runtime libraries needed to run some applications, and games in Wine.

The most used redistributable runtime libraries

• cinepak, dirac, ffdshow, icodecs, l3codex, and xvid

These are all the codecs required to run videos in some games (You can choose allcodecs to install all of them at once)

• d3dcompiler_42, d3dcompiler_43, and d3dcompiler_47

These Windows libraries are needed for Direct3d games from version 9 to 11. d3dcompiler_47 is needed for ReShade.

• d3dx9

This installs all d3dx9_XX libraries required for some Direct3d9 games.

• dotnet

There are a lot of DotNet framework versions to choose from. Choose dotnet version 4.8, and it will install dotnet from version 4.0 to 4.8

Installing dotnet from version 4.5 to 4.8 fails when using wine from version 5.12 to the latest wine version (6.4), so you need to use wine version 5.11 with Winetricks.

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WINE=~/Downloads/wine-5.11-staging-amd64/bin/wine winetricks

For more information follow this link » [[link]](/html/2021/3/how-to-use-custom-wine-builds.html#how to-install-dotnet-on-wine “How to use custom wine builds”)

• dxvk

This is necessary to run Direct3d games from version 9 to 11. More information can be found in this » [link]

• galliumnine

This can be used instead of dxvk for Direct3d9 games which may give better performance than dxvk with some game, but it only supports AMD GPUs, and can not be installed in the same wineprefix with dxvk, so it is better to be installed in a separate wineprefix.

• physx

This installs Nvidia PhysX.

• quartz

This installs quartz.dll which in necessary to run videos in some games.

• vcrun

Wine has its own Builtin DLLs for all versions of vcrun which works fine with many applications and games, but some application and games may check if native Visual C++ Redistributable Runtimes is installed, so it is better to install them all to avoid that situation in the future. Visual C++ Redistributable Runtimes are required for some games. Winetricks can install vcrun from 2003 to 2019. Do not install vcrun2015, or vcrun2017, just install vcrun2019, and it will install all the required libraries from 2015 to 2019.

• wmp9, wmp10, and wmp11

Windows Media Player is required for some games.

• xact, and xact_x64

These will install all native Xaudio libraries required for some games, but after FAudio is integrated into Wine, they are not required as before.

Install a font

Windows applications and games relies on several standard fonts to be found on Windows. In order for Wine to use these fonts, they just need to get them to be licensed under the LGPL. Anyway, Wine provides replacements for these fonts which can be found inside this directory » /opt/wine-staging/share/wine/fonts but if you want to install the original fonts, or install missing fonts, you can use Winetricks to do that.

How to install fonts using Winetricks

1. Open Winetricks.
2. Pick Select the default wineprefix, and press OK.
3. Pick Install a font, and press OK.
4. Choose the font you want to install

If you choose allfonts, all fonts in the list will be installed, and if you choose corefonts, that will install a few of the most popular Microsoft fonts like: Arial, Courier, and Times New Roman.

Change settings

This section include some options that can not be found in Winecfg. I can not explain all of these options, but you can find a description for every option next to each one of them.

Run Winecfg

This option runs winecfg (Wine configuration editor)

More information can be found in this » [link]

Run regedit

This option runs regedit (Wine Registry Editor)

More information can be found in this » [link]

Run taskmgr

This option runs taskmgr (Task Manager)

More information can be found in this » [link]

Run explorer

This option runs explorer (Wine explorer)

More information can be found in this » [link]

Run uninstaller

This option runs uninstaller (Add/Remove Programs)

More information can be found in this » [link]

Run a commandline shell

This option opens the wineprefix directory in the terminal

Browse files

This option opens the wineprefix in the File Manager installed on your Linux distro.

DELETE ALL DATA AND APPLICATIONS INSIDE THIS WINEPREFIX

This option deletes the wineprefix directory. A new wineprefix will be created after you close Winetricks, and open it again, but be aware that this action will delete also all of your savegames, so be careful.

Create new wineprefix

This option can be used to install a new wineprefix beside the default wineprefix ~/.wine

New wineprefixes will be created in this directory » ~/.local/share/wineprefixes

How to create 32bit wineprefix

1. Open Winetricks.
2. Choose Create new wineprefix

3. Pick 32 for Architecture, then type a name next to the Name field, and press OK.

Now everytime you open Winetricks, you will find the name of the new wineprefix in the main menu

Enable silent install

After enabling this option all winetricks warnings messages will not appear, but this option will be reverted back again after you restart winetricks, so you need to select it everytime you need it.

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WINE=~/Downloads/wine-5.11-staging-amd64/bin/wine winetricks