Wine is an operating system enhancing tool. In simple terms Wine will allow you to install Windows application on your MAC. Wine and WineBottler come as a package and they were previously known as "Darwine". Wine is the part of the package that functions somewhat as a launching tool for Windows applications, while WineBottler "masks" the program's files in a structure that MAC can use.
At first, I was a little skeptic regarding Wine since each operating system (Windows, Mac, Unix) is designed differently and usually bear little resemblance to one another. It seems that Wine manages to surpass, quite brilliantly I must say, the intricacies of operating system design since it allows you use some Windows applications with just a single click of the mouse. Wine is especially designed to let you run some Windows tools without any glitches, such as: File Manager, Registry Editor, Control Panel, Dos prompt and many more. The way Wine works is very complex and is somewhat explained in the program window as "Winetricks".
You are also able to install an impressive number of other Windows applications, but they might not work properly. I've tried to install Internet Explorer 6 but without any luck, yet Total Commander worked perfectly. I guess it is a matter of luck or system configuration when it comes to install certain Windows application. As Wine is under active development I have high hopes that in the end the number of Windows applications that will run without any compatibility issues will significantly increase.
In an end note, Wine is an impressive tool that will allow you to run Windows applications on your Mac. In the current stage of Wine development the number of programs available is limited but Wine is quite promising. Wine does take some time to install the Windows programs but the result surely is worth it.
v1.2 [Feb 6, 2012]
- Translation updates.
- Various bug fixes
