Wine 11.20: ARM64EC Tracing and 24 bug fixes

October 17, 2026, 07:18

The new Wine 11.20 brings improved XML validation and moves CD-ROM handling into the Mount Manager. It fixes crashes in the Office 2013 installer, as well as problems with OneDrive, MusicBee, audio, and launching older games. It also fixes a regression from Wine 11.19 that delayed the creation of a new prefix when the /etc/hosts file was large.

On October 16, 2026, Wine 11.20 was released, the latest development-branch version of the compatibility layer that lets you run Windows programs and games on Linux, macOS, and other Unix-like systems. The release adds call tracing for ARM64EC, improves XML validation, and hands CD-ROM handling over to the Mount Manager component. In total, 24 bug reports were closed, including crashes in Office 2013, OneDrive, and several older games. The source code is already available, and prebuilt distribution packages will appear on the corresponding download pages.

ARM64EC, XML, and CD-ROM

According to the official announcement, Wine 11.20 implements relay debugging for ARM64EC. It lets you follow function calls and makes it easier to find the causes of compatibility problems.

ARM64EC is a binary interface that allows code built specifically for Arm to run in the same process alongside emulated x64 code. It differs from the standard ARM64 ABI, so ARM64 and ARM64EC libraries cannot be used interchangeably.

MSXML now has improved XML document validation, in particular checking elements and attributes against a DTD, which describes the permitted structure of a document.

CD-ROM operations are now performed through the Mount Manager, a volume management component. As a result, all operations with such devices are concentrated in a single Wine subsystem.

Fixes for Office 2013, OneDrive, and Other Software

The update resolves installation, launch, interface, and input problems in the following applications:

Microsoft Office 2013 Click-to-Run: the installer no longer crashes when using the built-in msxml6 and saving XML via DOMDocument::save() with the “unicode” encoding.
QuickBooks 2008–2010: the license initialization error “Could not initialize license properties” has been eliminated.
QuickBooks SS 2008 R1: the problem of repeated crashes on the second launch has been resolved.
OneDrive: a crash caused by the incomplete implementation of cldapi.dll has been fixed.
MusicBee: the System.OutOfMemoryException no longer occurs in WoW64 mode.
FL Studio: when a menu is opened, the item under the mouse cursor is no longer selected instantly.
SumatraPDF 3.1.2: the Wine window title no longer covers the tabs.
TagScanner: the system window decorations no longer overlap with those drawn by the application itself.
Medicalc4: the problem with logging in to the program has been fixed.
Unigine Heaven 2.0, Toad for SQL Server 5.7, and QuickBooks help: the SHDocVw.dll interop library now loads correctly, because the built-in shdocvw.dll is no longer chosen over the native one.

Game Fixes

Pure Pinball: a crash when accessing already freed texture objects has been eliminated.
Incoming (1998): the game no longer crashes after the intro animation.
Star Wolves 3: audio dropouts and performance drops are gone.
Imperium: Great Battles of Rome: music and sound effects have returned.
UFO: Aftershock and UFO: Afterlight: a launch problem with proprietary NVIDIA drivers when using the EGL backend has been resolved.
Battlefield 1942: copying secdrv.sys, which failed because the C:\windows\syswow64\drivers directory was missing, has been fixed.
Neko Project 21/W: input now works in the emulator.

Wine 11.19 Regression and System Fixes

The developers got rid of a regression introduced in Wine 11.19: because of how dnsapi processed a large /etc/hosts file, the initialization of a new prefix could be delayed for a long time.

The remaining fixes concern libraries and low-level mechanisms:

Loading of the 64-bit msxml6.dll from Microsoft Core XML Services 6.0 has been repaired: Wine did not take into account that in Windows before version 8.1 the user virtual address space is limited to 44 bits.
A crash in InternetQueryOptionW when requesting proxy_username with a zero-length buffer and a valid size pointer has been eliminated.
In cmd, a stack buffer overflow when processing a quoted /c command line longer than MAX_PATH has been fixed.
On ARM64, a crash while handling a C++ exception has been resolved for the case where a DLL function ends with a call to a helper exception-throwing function that never returns control.
On ARM64, the SSBS bit reset after RtlRestoreContext, uncovered by the ssbs-probe test, has been fixed.
In Media Foundation, the behavior of MFCreateDXGISurfaceBuffer with DXGI_FORMAT_R8_UINT textures has been corrected. Because of this bug, applications using ElectraPlayer from Unreal Engine 4 could end up without video.

Where to Get Wine 11.20

Wine 11.20 belongs to the development branch. The developers have published a source code archive and stated that binary packages for various distributions will be released on their download pages. It is worth checking separately whether a package exists for your distribution and the repository you use.

Summary

This release will be useful to anyone who has run into the installation, launch, audio, or interface problems described above in Windows programs. For ARM64EC developers it provides new diagnostic capabilities, and the dnsapi fix removes the delay when creating a new environment with a large /etc/hosts file.