Adding New Wine Directories and Architectures

By default, Wine creates its directory in your home directory with the folder name ".wine" matching the architecture of your operating system (whether it's 32bit or 64bit).

Sometimes a program doesn't run or run correctly when your Wine architecture is set to 64bit. Rather than erasing your entire Wine directory (and every Windows program you've installed) you can create a new directory with a 32bit  architecture and run Wine out of it being its default location.


Whether it's a good idea to have a new Wine directory for every Windows program would be more a personal preference. Sometimes when I just want to test a program on a clean Wine install and erase its existence afterwards I'll create a new Wine directory for it (although still with a 64bit arch).

How to create a 32bit Wine prefix on a 64bit OS:
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine32" WINEARCH="win32" wine winecfg
This will make a 32bit Wine prefix in a folder called ".wine32" in your home folder, it will configure itself and then pop up the wine configuration window.
To run a Windows Executable in this prefix you have to specify the Wine prefix:
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine32" wine program.exe

How to create a second Wine prefix:
WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine_2" wine winecfg
Much like above, this will make a normal Wine prefix in a folder called ".wine_2" in your home folder.
You must run the Windows Executable under this prefix in the same manner as above.

If you install a program under the prefix, Wine creates a link (usually a desktop icon and/or menu icon) which will launch the program from the prefix it was installed in automatically.