Wine 10.12 missing kernel32.dll

Support Software & Applications
1

Many years ago I setup KDE and Wine, it is still running well and I love it. I thought I would set up a new system on a spare harddrive in case disaster strikes but am totally stuck with Wine. I have send all day trying various suggestions on here and the web but it still produces 32 bit files lacking.
I have just done a new install and loaded Wine following this

But wine tricks bring up the normal error
wine cmd.exe /c echo ‘%AppData%’ returned empty string, error message “wine: could not load kernel32.dll, status c0000135”
Can any body help before I dive it the whisky bottle.

2

The new wine version has changed.
You need to transition all your 32-bit prefixes to 64 bits.
(essentially reinstalling all these …)

Or use a software like bottles to keep using old, existing 32-bit prefixes.

There are posts about this here on the forum.

This is the reason for your issues:

https://archlinux.org/news/transition-to-the-new-wow64-wine-and-wine-staging/

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

2 Likes
3

What he said… :point_up:
Your wineprefixes must be recreated.

4

Thank you for the replies. How does an old novice computerist
recreat wineprefixes please?

1 Like
5

When you install a Windows application, it will by default be installed in a directory called ~/.wine
Or you can set WINEPREFIX to some other directory.

If you chose to go the first route, you need to move the directory (or delete it).
mv ~/.wine ~/.wine_now_old_and_defunct

and then simply reinstall your Windows application

You should use some software like “bottles” which will help you organize your different Windows applications and also allows you to use a specific, (also older) wine version for each one program,
so that you are not dependent on the ever changing system wide version of wine.

1 Like
6

Basically, delete any already existing. If you have never created a custom wineprefix then it’s likely the only one will be the default (hidden) wineprefix at ~/.wine in you user directory.

Delete it. Any Windows applications previously installed in WINE will need to be installed (and configured, where necessary) again.

While installing Windows applications, WINE will create a new default wineprefix and progressively update it according to the needs of the Windows applications you install.

That’s the theory, at least. :slight_smile:

Note (for passers-by or those interested):

A wineprefix is WINE-speak for a directory that contains the files needed for running Windows applications; the content of “C:\ drive” in Windows parlance.

Deleting the wineprefix is akin to reinstalling the OS; something M$ Windows users have become more than accustomed to; except that WINE does the reinstalling for you.

1 Like
7

… maybe not really delete it - at least not immediately
There might be important data within this “Windows” installation.
That’s why I recommended moving/renaming instead of deleting.

8

Yes, that’s true.

I typically might compress the entire wineprefix to a .zip/.tar file (or rename it) before deleting.

While it is fairly presumed that WINE users will have that foresight, one supposes it cannot always be assumed.

9

Thank you for the replies but I have hopefully found an easier solution. I had a full system backup from a couple of months back so I used that and then all the updates ignoring Wine and it worked.
Just got to remember when I do future updates to ignore Wine.

1 Like
10

This will never be a long term solution. Your Wine will break with one of the future updates. It will probably not break with the next update, but it will break eventually.

On an rolling distribution, ignoring updates is not a solution. You just need to deal with at a later point. Wine is not a critical system packages, so at least your system will probably still boot.

3 Likes
11

Please take note of the entire post from @xabbu …

Restoring a backup and ignoring required updates is indeed not a solution to a problem; only triage, at best.

Regards.