I can no longer start any Windows applications with Wine 10.18

[Hal9000]

Wine is broken on my system; I can no longer start any Windows applications with Wine 10.18. I tested it on the stable branch, where Wine 10.15 works without any problems.

[freggel.doe]

wine 10.18 works for me on unstable branch..

[2old4gaming]

journalctl - f yield any clues?

[Hal9000]

Yes, but it’s incomprehensible to me.

07.11.25 11:30	env	0128:err:environ:init_peb starting L"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Kieback&Peter\\PHWIN\\Phglt.exe" in experimental wow64 mode
07.11.25 11:30	systemd	app-wine\x2dPrograms\x2dKieback\x26Peter\x2dPHWIN\x2dPHWIN@ece02fd6533f4d70810969977f77161f.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=3/NOTIMPLEMENTED
07.11.25 11:30	env	0134:err:environ:init_peb starting L"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Kieback&Peter\\PHWIN\\PHINDOWS.EXE" in experimental wow64 mode
07.11.25 11:31	kwin_wayland	0x1: GL_INVALID_VALUE in glTexSubImage2D(xoffset 0 + width 30 > 10)
07.11.25 11:31	systemd	app-wine\x2dPrograms\x2dKieback\x26Peter\x2dPHWIN\x2dPHWIN@ece02fd6533f4d70810969977f77161f.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
07.11.25 11:31	systemd	app-wine\x2dPrograms\x2dKieback\x26Peter\x2dPHWIN\x2dPHWIN@ece02fd6533f4d70810969977f77161f.service: Consumed 920ms CPU time, 85M memory peak.
07.11.25 11:31	kwin_wayland	0x1: GL_INVALID_VALUE in glTexSubImage2D(xoffset 0 + width 30 > 10)

[soundofthunder]

@Hal9000

it’s incomprehensible

This may (or may not) be relevant.

Did you recreate your 32bit WINEprefixes as recommended in the respective announcement a few months ago?:

@Breaking changes to wine and wine-staging

Transition to the new WoW64 wine and wine-staging

2025-06-16

We are transitioning the wine and wine-staging package to a pure wow64 build. This change removes the dependency on the multilib repository for wine and wine-staging.

The main reason for this is to align with upstream Wine development, which simplifies packaging and the dependency chain.

Potential Issues:

• OpenGL Performance: A known limitation of the new WoW64 mode is reduced performance for 32-bit applications that use OpenGL directly
• Breaking Changes: Existing 32-bit prefixes needs to be recreated

If you are facing issues with 32 bit prefixes, please recreate these and reinstall the application.

Arch Linux - News: Transition to the new WoW64 wine and wine-staging

[Ben]

Possibly relevant:

• The app you’re trying to run (Kieback&Peter PHWIN) is a legacy 32‑bit program. It likely expects full 32‑bit Windows APIs, which aren’t fully implemented in WoW64.
• Running under Wayland adds another layer of complexity. Some WINE apps behave better under X11 (via Xorg or XWayland).

[Nachlese]

You could use Bottles or something similar - transfer your wine prefixes.
There you can have a specific (older) wine version for each Windows application.
That version of wine is then independent of the system wide installed version and you’ll never need to change a thing again.

[Hal9000]

Okay, thanks for the info, I’ll try reinstalling.

[soundofthunder]

@Hal9000

I’ll try reinstalling

…after recreating the wineprefix…

You can simply rename the old one to remove it from the equation if there is anything in it you still need to access for some reason – a custom configuration, for example.

Assuming the default wineprefix;

mv ~/.wine ~/.wine-old

That would leave you free to create a new wineprefix either manually or by installing some random Windows application to get it started.

Regards.

[Hal9000]

Yes, it’s an old 32-bit application. I’ll test it again with Wine. This and a few other Windows applications that I still need also run well in the VM; that might be the easier way. Thanks for the info.

[Hal9000]

Thanks, there are only a few applications, I’ll try it that way.

[Hal9000]

@Ben

It likely expects full 32‑bit Windows APIs, which aren’t fully implemented in WoW64.

It seems that something changed with wow64 between versions 10.15 and 10.18. I even reinstalled everything completely, re-creating all the 32-bit prefixes. No luck, the 32-bit application still won’t start. Now, as a test, I uninstalled Wine 10.18 and replaced it with wine-tkg-staging 10.15, and the application starts again.

[soundofthunder]

Which Windows applications are they? Maybe I can test it locally.

[Hal9000]

Do you really want to go to all that trouble? I tested it with phindows.exe, which is a remote terminal program for QNX Servers.

Link phindows

[soundofthunder]

I didn’t need (nor did I download) the serial for the sake of testing the install.
The installation completed and Phwin seems to start without issue.

Did you create a 32bit or 64bit WINEprefix? Mine is a 64bit prefix – 32bit applications will install (using WoW64) to C:\Program Files (x86)\ ... – perhaps that makes a difference.

[Hal9000]

@soundofthunder

32bit applications will install (using WoW64) to C:\Program Files (x86)\

It’s a 64-bit WINEprefix. phwin is installed in Program Files x86; the installation completes, but the program is still not executable—no window opens. When the application is working correctly, the start window is visible as shown in the image. If no remote server is reachable, an error message appears after approximately 30 seconds.

[Nachlese]

If it is a 32-bit program, you need to install it into a 32-bit prefix.
To create a 32-bit prefix you start by prepending the command with
WINEARCH=win32

like here, for example:

Make 32-bit WINEPREFIX on 64-bit System - WineHQ Forums

or here:

https://askubuntu.com/questions/177192/how-do-i-create-a-32-bit-wine-prefix

The default (without WINEARCH=win32) is a 64-bit prefix - in which your program will not run, I guess.

If you are reinstalling it anyway, why not just use Bottles and a specific wine version inside - you’ll never again have to touch it then - it will be independent of the wine version installed in Manjaro.
… but I already said this …

[soundofthunder]

@Nachlese

If it is a 32-bit program, you need to install it into a 32-bit prefix.

@Nachlese

Sorry, my friend, but that simply isn’t true. The point of WoW64 is to create a virtual 32bit environment for running 32bit code – Windows itself has done this for a number of years; which is how one can run a 32bit application on a 64bit OS.

M$ doesn’t even provide a 32bit version of Windows 11 anymore; WoW64 is the only option to run 32bit applications, at least the only option that doesn’t require yet another virtual machine, which WoW64 effectively is already.

The same usage of WoW64 has applied to WINE also; one could choose to install a 32 bit application in either a 32bit or 64bit wineprefix.

However, I’m not completely dismissing the idea that a 32bit wineprefix might magically allow the application in question to work as expected. For example, if the app relies on support that is only available in older 32bit Windows (such as WinXP) that could be an issue.

I suppose the question would be @Hal9000 - did Phwin previously work as expected in a 64bit wineprefix?

I suspect it did, and that the new wineprefix might simply be missing some of the support required for Phwin to do much more than install and run.

[Nachlese]

@soundofthunder

one could choose to install a 32 bit application in either a 32bit or 64bit wineprefix.

Ok, so apparently I got this wrong?

Previously you could create 32-bit prefixes and 64-bit prefixes - and might even have needed to, depending on the program.
But now, with WoW64, this is no longer necessary?
Everything should just work - WINEARCH is no longer a “thing”?

@Hal9000
I ran winecfg, then set the windows version to Win7, then ran the installer.
The program behaves as you describe it should - error message after a few seconds
Unable to connect to remote host … unknown error code …
because of course I do not know a valid address.

[soundofthunder]

@Nachlese

Previously you could create 32-bit prefixes and 64-bit prefixes

And you still can, at least, I presume so (I haven’t needed to create a 32bit wineprefix for some years), but it isn’t necessary any more because a 64bit winprefix allows 32bit applications to be installed.

@Nachlese

Everything should just work - WINEARCH is no longer a “thing”?

winearch should still work as it did before to specifically create a 32bit or 64bit wineprefix, but the 64bit wineprefix still supports 32bit applications.