It's probably best to think of WINE prefixes sort of like virtual machines. They're not virtual machines, but they do behave somewhat similarly. A WINE prefix is a folder that contains all of the WINE configurations as well as all of the Windows pieces that WINE uses for compatibility, including libraries and a registry. The default WINE prefix is ~/.wine, but different and multiple prefixes can be used.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://linuxconfig.org/using-wine-prefixes
Leonardo Firmino Soares
the path of light i needed, thank you!
Dirk Dierickx
wine prefixes, been using them for many years, it’s also what tools like PoL use. prefixes make wine better then windows, each app gets its own dedicated space, you can screw up that prefix without causing problems with your other wine installed programs/games. it’s easy to pick up a prefix and move it to another machine or drive.
and most importantly, it’s easy to remove a program/game, we all know how well windows unstallers work (ie they don’t and always leave a gigantic mess behind, sometimes causing problems later on).