What is Wineskin?
Wineskin is a tool used to make wrappers to run Windows software on Mac OS X. The wrappers are in the form of a normal Mac .app Application, which can be double clicked and ran just like its native. They can also be used to make a distributable “port” of software.
If you make a wrapper that uses software you are not licensed to distribute, you can still get it working, and clear out the programs, then allow others to have copies of your wrapper so they can put their licensed program inside of it and use it, or just make wrappers for yourself and run your Windows software on your Mac without even needing Windows.
While Wineskin is used mainly for gaming, it is capable of running non-gaming programs as well.
Wineskin 1.2 supports...
Mac OS X 10.4(WS3 engines)
Mac OS X 10.5 (any engine)
Mac OS X 10.6 (any engine)
Wineskin requires a Mac with an Intel (x86) compatible CPU.
More Information about Wineskin
Wineskin runs Windows™ software by using Wine (www.winehq.org), which is a re-implementation of the Win32 API for non-Windows™
operating systems. It is not an emulator.
No Windows™ license is needed to run
Wine, unless you install things into it that
fall under a license.
Wine only runs in a X11 windowing system (for now). Xquartz (xquartz.macosforge.org) is built into Wineskin Engines to handle this, so anyone using a Wineskin port will have the same exact Xquartz version running.
For a database of what runs good in Wine and what doesn’t, and information on how to get certain programs to work, please go to the Wine site and look at their Application Database (AppDB).
NEWS August 30th 2010
I am in the middle of major re-designs of Wineskin for a Wineskin 2.0 version.
A lot of this is listed on the TODO list, but I’m going to take Wineskin more back towards being a simple way to create “ports” or “wrappers” for ports of Windows apps to Mac OS X. Wineskin 1.x is a bit confusing and was sort of multiple thoughts and ideas made at different times all thrown together quickly.
Wineskin 2.0 will be back like before 1.0 to all Self Contained wrapper making. WineskinSettings.app is renamed Wineskin.app and all tools you need for a wrapper is inside of that app. The only other App there will be (the main one you download) will be called Wineskin Winery.app. This program will have very specific things it does. It will manage available engines on your machine for wrappers, including a GUI front end for custom building engines from Wine source. It will also keep a master wrapper (with an updater to keep it updated). You’ll be able to create a new blank wrapper from this Master wrapper, just select which engine to use, what to name it, and where to put it and hit create. All other control of this wrapper will be done from the wrapper Wineskin.app.
Wineskin is Open Source software licensed under the LGPL. See the main project page at https://sourceforge.net/projects/wineskin/
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Click here to see the Development TODO list! Updated on 8/30/2010