Hey all,
I am running SUSE 9.1 personal, latest version of wine (20041019). I have a Windows XP install that I made purposefully for installing and running apps through wine.

I am having a problem installing and running applications: I can only install if I simulate win98. Win2k or winxp simulation doesn't seem to do anything. Wine starts, then exits without doing anything. Conversely, I can't execute any apps under win98 simulation without lots of program errors, such as ASPI problems with DVDShrink, I have to change to winxp.

Any ideas?

Are you running wine as a user, or root? Some times wine doesent work properly if you are running it as a user.

I am running as a regular user, as I thought the generally suggested method is for Linux. From my understanding, it is recommended to NEVER run applications as root. Besides, my wife needs to use this machine too and there is no way in bloody hell I am giving her root access.

Thats what they recommend, but after using Linux for over 10 years i would say, unless you have a server, to always run linux as root. Running as user causes way too many problems, and some programs just don't run under anything but root.