So I downloaded the latest version of wine, and I did as suggested by running "wine program.exe"
I've run this: wine notepad
and notepad comes up after two error messages.
Ideally I would like to read and retrieve information from outlook emails
Can some one help me accomplish this?

johnz@Tux:~> wine program.exe
Created symlink /home/johnz/.wine/dosdevices/com1 -> /dev/ttyS0
Created symlink /home/johnz/.wine/dosdevices/com2 -> /dev/ttyS1
Created symlink /home/johnz/.wine/dosdevices/com3 -> /dev/ttyS2
Created symlink /home/johnz/.wine/dosdevices/com4 -> /dev/modem
Created symlink /home/johnz/.wine/dosdevices/lpt1 -> /dev/lp0
Created symlink /home/johnz/.wine/dosdevices/a: -> /media/floppy
Created symlink /home/johnz/.wine/dosdevices/c: -> ../%HOME%/.wine/fake_windows
Created symlink /home/johnz/.wine/dosdevices/m: -> /media/cdrom
Created symlink /home/johnz/.wine/dosdevices/x: -> /tmp
Created symlink /home/johnz/.wine/dosdevices/y: -> ../%HOME%
Created symlink /home/johnz/.wine/dosdevices/z: -> /
Created symlink /home/johnz/.wine/dosdevices/a:: -> /dev/fd0
Created symlink /home/johnz/.wine/dosdevices/m:: -> /dev/sr0

You can now remove the [SerialPorts], [ParallelPorts], and [Drive] sections
in your configuration file, they are replaced by the above symlinks.

Converted drive type to new entry HKLM\Software\Wine\Drives "A:" = L"floppy"
Converted drive type to new entry HKLM\Software\Wine\Drives "C:" = L"hd"
Converted drive type to new entry HKLM\Software\Wine\Drives "M:" = L"cdrom"
Converted drive type to new entry HKLM\Software\Wine\Drives "X:" = L"hd"
Converted drive type to new entry HKLM\Software\Wine\Drives "Y:" = L"network"
Converted drive type to new entry HKLM\Software\Wine\Drives "Z:" = L"network"
Converted temp dir to new entry HKCU\Environment "TEMP" = L"C:\\Windows\\Temp"
Converted path dir to new entry HKCU\Environment "PATH" = L"C:\\Windows;C:\\Windows\\System;X:\\;Y:\\"
Converted profile dir to new entry HKCU\Environment "USERPROFILE" = L"c:\\windows\\Profiles\\Administrator"
Converted windows dir to new entry HKCU\Environment "windir" = L"C:\\Windows"
Converted system dir to new entry HKCU\Environment "winsysdir" = L"C:\\Windows\\System"
Warning: the specified Windows directory L"C:\\Windows" is not accessible.
Warning: the specified System directory L"C:\\Windows\\System" is not accessible.
wine: cannot open (null)

its been a while since i dabbled with wine, but in the new version you don't have to specify drives in the config file anymore.
You use symlinks (aka shortcuts from windows.... sorta... symlinks can sort of treated as the real file. you can open it etc but it actually redirects you to the linked file/dir etc.) in one of the folders.... drives I think in the wine folder.

I think you will have to setup those drive symlinks correctly, you have to symlink them to devices in /dev folder... but it has been a while. If you look at your output you posted you will see the links it has created.

You should notice the two main problems here:

There is some problem with either the symlink you are creating or the folder in your config file is wrong.

do a bit of a google on a howto for wine and there might be some more helpful information. or try the man page.

not sure how much you know about linux but just incase.... to create a symlink

> ln -s fileToLinkPath linkPath

also
> man wine

might give some info on wine to help


There is a lot more to setting up wine than that but that is a start.

again. I recomend google a HowTo on wine. I am sure you will find something

Thank you for the direction. It always nice to see someone reply with suggestions.