Windows compatibility layer Wine 6.21 is out now

More fixes and new features are ready for another development release with Wine 6.21 going out, the compatibility layer for Windows games and applications. It's part of what makes up Steam Play Proton, where once a year or so a new stable release is made.

Here's the release highlights for Wine 6.21:

• WinSpool, GPhoto, and a few other modules converted to PE.
• Better support for inline functions in DbgHelp.
• Beginnings of a MSDASQL implementation.

As we explained previously: the continued conversion of various modules to PE is another change that will gradually increase compatibility in many ways over time for certain expected behaviour needed by Windows applications. Previously Wine has built its Win32 libraries (like DLLs and EXEs) as ELF but for many reasons (like better compatibility) they've started to move them over to use PE instead.

For bugs reported as fixed as of this release they noted 26 including issues solved for: Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Sniper Elite series, Resident Evil 0 HD Remaster, Homesick, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger, Resident Evil 6, Skyrim SE, various Unreal Engine 4 games, Resident Evil 4 HD and much more.

In related news, their own World Wine News has been rebooted where one of their team gives an overview of the Wine world. Cressida Silver is their new writer, working for Wine sponsor CodeWeavers. The most recent release went up just after Wine 6.20 - hopefully another will come soon with more highlights.

Also, want to know what it's like to work on Wine? Another new developer from CodeWeavers recently wrote up a blog post going over their work and it's a pretty fun read that doesn't get overly technical and confusing.