## INTRODUCTION

Wine is a program which allows running Microsoft Windows programs
(including DOS, Windows 3.x, Win32, and Win64 executables) on Unix.
It consists of a program loader which loads and executes a Microsoft
Windows binary, and a library (called Winelib) that implements Windows
API calls using their Unix, X11 or Mac equivalents.  The library may also
be used for porting Windows code into native Unix executables.

Wine is free software, released under the GNU LGPL; see the file
LICENSE for the details.


## SETUP

Once installed, you can run the `winecfg` configuration tool. See the
Support area at https://www.winehq.org/ for configuration hints.


## RUNNING PROGRAMS

When invoking Wine, you may specify the entire path to the executable,
or a filename only.

For example, to run Notepad:

```
wine notepad            (using the search Path as specified in
wine notepad.exe         the registry to locate the file)

wine c:\\windows\\notepad.exe      (using DOS filename syntax)

wine ~/.wine/drive_c/windows/notepad.exe  (using Unix filename syntax)

wine notepad.exe readme.txt          (calling program with parameters)
```

Wine is not perfect, so some programs may crash. If that happens you
will get a crash log that you should attach to your report when filing
a bug.


## GETTING MORE INFORMATION

- **WWW**: A great deal of information about Wine is available from WineHQ at
	https://www.winehq.org/ : various Wine Guides, application database,
	bug tracking. This is probably the best starting point.

- **FAQ**: The Wine FAQ is located at https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/FAQ

- **Wiki**: The Wine Wiki is located at https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/

- **Gitlab**: Wine development is hosted at https://gitlab.winehq.org

- **Mailing lists**:
	There are several mailing lists for Wine users and developers; see
	https://gitlab.winehq.org/wine/wine/-/wikis/Forums for more
	information.

- **Bugs**: Report bugs to Wine Bugzilla at https://bugs.winehq.org
	Please search the bugzilla database to check whether your
	problem is already known or fixed before posting a bug report.

- **IRC**: Online help is available at channel `#WineHQ` on irc.libera.chat.
