wine users - Jan 2009 - I can't install anything in WINE. What am I doing wrong?

Here is my setup:
Wine version 1.0.1
Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex x64

I have tried installing Call of Duty 4, since my friend has a copy and the app
db says it works.  However, during the installation, direct x fails to install. 
I downloaded direct x 9c and tried to install it, but it fails immediately.
I have tried different programs over a period of about 9 months, and nothing
will work.  Is there a trick to getting applications and games to work in Wine? 
It seems like I would need to add windows files (dll's and such) into wine
to give it better support for all these applications, but I really don't
know.  I have gone through this site and googled around many times, and
can't seem to figure out why I have these problems.

For example, when trying to install direct x, the following error is displayed.
"An internal system error occurred.  Please refer to DXError.log and
DirectX.log in your windows folder to determine the problem."

Any help is greatly appreciated.

nonzer0 wrote:
> I downloaded direct x 9c and tried to install it, but it fails immediately.
Don't do that. Wine has it's own DX implementation. Native DX won't
work with exception of few dlls that are missing in Wine.

On 2009-01-17 (Saturday) 21:06:20 nonzer0 wrote:
> Here is my setup:
> Wine version 1.0.1
> Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex x64
>
> I have tried installing Call of Duty 4, since my friend has a copy and the
> app db says it works.  However, during the installation, direct x fails to
> install.  I downloaded direct x 9c and tried to install it, but it fails
> immediately. I have tried different programs over a period of about 9
> months, and nothing will work.  Is there a trick to getting applications
> and games to work in Wine?
	Your Wine prefix is probably damaged. First, run this:

rm -rf ~/.wine

	Then try to install some application(s). You may want to read in 
http://appdb.winehq.org about application you want to try to install. For 
first try I recommend to install something that works according to appdb. 
This way you will make sure that your Wine installation is working as you 
expect. Then you can install whatever you wish.

	Also I recommend you to install Wine 1.1.13. Your Wine version (1.0.1) is too 
old. Many bugs was fixed and improvements was made since your version.

	If you ever need to install any native dll(s), please use winetricks. This is 
especially true if you are novice.

	However, remember that any case where you need native dll is a bug in Wine 
and should be reported to htpp://bugs.winehq.org so we can fix it.

	Remember that installing native dll(s) may break your Wine prefix. For 
example, if you install dcom98 many application will fail to work correctly. 
To restore, just remove corresponding dll entries in winecfg and if nothing 
else helping - rm -rf ~/.wine.

	You may want to read in the documentation about using multiple Wine prefixes 
because installing Windows applications in different Wine prefixes is good 
practice - it gives you much more stable configuration because Windows 
application do not conflict with each other when they are installed in 
separate Wine prefixes.

Thanks L. Rahyen and vitamin, I figured it had its own directx, but wasn't
sure what to do.

OK.  I updated my wine to version 1.1.13, and removed the .wine directory.  I
also managed to get COD4 installed, but receive error r6002.I have a few
questions now.

1.  What is the wine prefix, and how would it be damaged?  It came preinstalled
in ubuntu.

2.  After reading through some forums, it says that I am likely missing dlls and
to try using winetricks.  But I also remember reading that you shouldn't use
winetricks because it modifies the default files, making it harder to diagnose a
problem with wine.  Also, if you use winetricks, not to submit a bug report. 
Should I use winetricks, or is there a better way to go about adding missing
dlls?

Between work and school, I don't really have any time to play games
(I've been playing Treasure of the Rudras on the Wii Virtual Console for 6
months now and haven't beat it) I am just doing this to gain a little bit
more knowledge on how to use linux.  I am mainly doing this so friends of mine
will be willing to try linux.

So, should I avoid winetricks in order to help the maintainers of the software
or is it ok to use it and still report a bug?