Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X and Unix operating systems. Wine which stand for (Wine is not an emulator) and is package included with all the SUSE Linux distributions and can be used to run many of your Win32 (Win 95/98, NT/2000/XP), Win16 (Win 3.1) and DOS applications. Using Wine, you can finally remove the requirement for the Windows license and get the most out of you Linux system.
Wine can be found in a hidden directory (.wine) in the userâs home directory (note: may have to execute wine to create the .wine directory). In the .wine directory structure you will see familiar directories required by the Windows operating system such as Program Files, Windows, My Documents, etc.
If you execute regedit in a Terminal Window you will notice that wine implements a Windows registry which makes sense, since most Windows applications require entries in the Windows registry.
Many Windows applications have a dependency on the Microsoftâs COM product. You may need to download DCOM98 from the following URL. http://www.microsoft.com/com/dcom/dcom98/download.asp
When installing a Windows application you can use wine to execute the install.exe or setup.exe from a terminal window (i.e. wine setup.exe) or if you prefer the GUI environment you can use the Linux File Manager (Pops up automatically when a CD is inserted) to browse and select the install.exe or setup.exe. When Linux prompts for an application to open the file enter wine and click OK.
Once the application is installed, you can either run the application from a Linux Terminal Window by changing directories to where the applications executable file is located and execute wine <app name>, or better yet create an icon on the desktop that references the application preceded with the wine command.
For more information on Wine visit Wind HQ 
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