Wine 11.18 has been released as the latest version of the popular compatibility layer for running Windows applications and games on Linux and other Unix-like operating systems.
The headline change is additional NTOSKRNL (the core Windows kernel component) support for Windows kernel drivers, aiming to improve compatibility with software that depends on kernel-level Windows functionality.
Wine 11.18 also brings a broad set of code-correctness fixes and compatibility improvements to the project’s standard C headers.
Beyond those development changes, the release fixes 21 reported bugs affecting games and desktop applications.
Among the gaming-related fixes, Wine 11.18 addresses texture rendering problems in Assassin’s Creed Rogue, music corruption in Super Meat Boy, and a crash affecting Screamer 4×4 when running fullscreen through XWayland.
The release also fixes graphical corruption in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, broken text and graphics in Return to Krondor, and MP4 playback problems in The Bard’s Tale IV Director’s Cut that could cause a black screen and application hang.
Another notable fix resolves mouse button handling regressions affecting several games launched through Steam.
Media playback compatibility has also been improved, including a fix for a regression that caused In Sound Mind to crash during its startup videos.
On the application side, Wine 11.18 includes compatibility fixes for Adobe Creative Cloud and the Adobe Express Photos installer.
Several regressions introduced during recent Wine development have also been addressed, including issues that could prevent Wine from starting and problems affecting ARM64EC systems.
Finally, Wine applications such as Regedit and Notepad should no longer incorrectly display Arabic when the system locale is set to Norwegian Nynorsk.
For more details, visit the announcement. Wine 11.18 is now available as source code, while binary packages for supported Linux distributions are expected through WineHQ and the respective distribution repositories.
