Release occurred Wine 11.9, the latest experimental version of the free implementation of the Win32 API that allows running Windows applications on Linux, BSD, and macOS without a full virtual machine. The release has been published May 15, 2026 and continues the two-week development cycle of the 11.x branch, which will later form the basis for Wine 12.0.
In Wine 11.9, the main focus is on low-level changes in thread operation, improvements for ARM64, the development of Wayland support, and further enhancement of compatibility with applications using VBScript. Additionally, developers have closed 24 bug reports affecting both applications and games.
What’s Changed
A library of SQLite included with Wine has been added. Wine now includes its own copy of SQLite, prepared based on the main SQLite project source code. It is used to implement winsqlite3, which is a Windows-compatible interface for accessing SQLite. This effectively reduces dependency on the external environment and makes the behavior of winsqlite3 more predictable for Windows programs that expect this library to be present in the system.
Support for system threads has begun. Wine has started transitioning to the use of operating system threads where previously some tasks were handled by its own internal mechanisms. This change is currently labeled as initial support, but it is important for the future overhaul of Wine's internal subsystems. In particular, it is noted that system threads will also be usable by other components, including internal parts of the sound driver.
Thread suspension has been implemented in emulated code on ARM64. For ARM64, the ability to suspend threads within emulated code has been added. This applies to cases when Wine executes Windows application code on ARM64 systems and must correctly replicate Windows behavior in thread management. This improvement is particularly important for complex programs that actively work with multithreading, synchronization, and low-level execution mechanisms.
Work on compatibility with VBScript has continued. The new version includes further fixes for VBScript support. This component is necessary not only for legacy scripts but also for installers, enterprise applications, and service components of Windows programs that still utilize VBScript scripts. Among the fixed issues, there is a specific mention of a parsing problem with assignments in VBScript.
Support has been added for forced pointer warping in the Wayland driver. The Wine driver for Wayland now supports pointer warping through the wp_pointer_warp_v1 protocol. This feature is needed by applications and games that expect the program to be able to programmatically reposition the mouse pointer. While this may not always be noticeable for regular windowed applications, the absence of such a function often leads to camera control and mouse capture issues in games, especially first-person ones.
24 bugs have been fixed. The list of resolved issues includes fixes for Lotus Notes, WinSCP, VBScript, Wargaming Game Center, Command & Conquer 3, and other applications and games. Specific reports mention the installer crash of Lotus Notes 8.x with a SAX parser error, the WinSCP interface rendering issue, and the VBScript assignment statement compilation error.
Source: linux.org.ru
