Wine 11.18
Wine 11.18 is a development release that expands its NTOSKRNL implementation for Windows kernel drivers, fixes C header compatibility issues, and closes 21 bugs.
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Wine 11.18 is a biweekly development release in the 11.x series, released September 18, 2026. We covered it in the news.
What changed
Expanded NTOSKRNL support. ntoskrnl.exe is the Windows kernel. Wine provides a user-space implementation of the interfaces kernel-mode Windows code expects, and 11.18 extends it. That matters because a surprising amount of Windows software ships a kernel driver: copy protection, hardware utilities for RGB and fan control, and low-level device tools. Better coverage means more of that software can install and run at all.
It does not mean kernel-level anti-cheat now works. Anti-cheat that has not been enabled for Linux by the game’s publisher will not run, whatever Wine implements.
Also in this release: C header compatibility fixes, and 21 bugs closed.
Development or stable?
Wine alternates: biweekly development releases (11.x) during the year, and a stable release each January. Development releases are generally solid, but for a machine where Wine apps must keep working, the stable branch from your distribution is the conservative choice.
Installing
WineHQ provides repositories for Debian, Ubuntu, and Fedora with development builds:
# after adding the WineHQ repository for your distro
sudo apt install --install-recommends winehq-devel
wine --versionFor games, Steam’s Proton, which builds on Wine, is usually the better route; see gaming on Linux with Proton. For desktop applications, our guide to running Windows apps with Wine covers prefixes and common fixes.
Verify Your Download
Source tarballs in the 11.x source directory have matching .sign files signed by the Wine maintainer.