Small patch release after v4.5.0 which introduced CPU core limit to each bottle and still works with taskset.

⚡ Simplified Wine Launch Mechanics & CPU Limiting

• Restored wine start execution path: Applications launched with CPU core limits now consistently use Wine's standard start / start /unix command wrapper rather than direct launching.
• Clean taskset integration: CPU core restrictions via taskset now wrap the standard wine start process cleanly without altering launch parameters or path handling.

📦 Install or Upgrade

On supported 64-bit Debian, Ubuntu, and compatible derivatives, install or update through the signed WineGUI APT repository with:

curl -fsSL https://gitlab.melroy.org/melroy/winegui/-/raw/main/scripts/install.sh | sudo bash

Existing APT installations will receive version 4.5.1 automatically through standard system package updates once published.

✨ Per-bottle CPU core limits

WineGUI 4.5.0 adds a CPU core limit to each bottle's performance settings. Choose how many of the host's permitted logical CPUs a bottle may initially use. The setting applies to launches from WineGUI and to WineGUI-managed desktop shortcuts, with support for both regular Wine runners and GE-Proton/UMU. Existing bottles remain unlimited unless you enable the option.

An effective limit uses taskset and launches the application directly, avoiding a wine start intermediary that could leave games stalled. A value equal to or greater than the available CPU count behaves as unlimited, so it does not add an unnecessary wrapper. MSI installers retain their dedicated msiexec /i launch path.

🐛 Launch and shortcut fixes

• Fixed direct launches of executables with spaces in their names while preserving separately supplied arguments, including commands such as notepad file.exe.
• Managed shortcuts now follow changes to a bottle's prefix, runner, environment, launch command, and CPU setting. Legacy WineGUI shortcuts are migrated when possible; prefix-local application paths are updated when a bottle folder is renamed.
• Normal Wine launches no longer leave shell children attached to WineGUI. Wineserver waits are bounded and their helper processes are reaped.

⚙️ Smoother bottle edits

Configuration-only changes no longer wait for background Wine services. Changes that mutate the prefix are refused while a user application is active, helping avoid interrupted running applications.

📦 Install or upgrade

On supported 64-bit Debian, Ubuntu, and compatible derivatives, install through the signed WineGUI APT repository with:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/winegui/WineGUI/main/scripts/install.sh | sudo bash

Existing APT installations receive 4.5.0 through the normal update process once it reaches the repository. The new CPU-limit feature requires util-linux (taskset), now declared as a package dependency.

CPU affinity is not a strict sandbox: applications can change their own thread affinity after launch. The setting controls the inherited launch mask, not an immutable per-process ceiling.

✨ Easier APT installation

WineGUI 4.4.0 adds a direct installer for supported 64-bit Debian, Ubuntu, and compatible derivative distributions:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/winegui/WineGUI/main/scripts/install.sh | sudo bash

The installer detects the supported distribution suite, verifies the embedded WineGUI repository key, installs WineGUI from the official signed APT repository, and enables future updates through the normal system updates. Unsupported distributions and architectures fail safely without selecting an incompatible repository.

🐛 Application list fix

• Fixed application activation while the application list is filtered. Activating a visible search result now launches the displayed application instead of an item at the same position in the unfiltered list.

📦 Signed APT repository

WineGUI 4.3.3 introduced the official signed APT repository. Release DEBs install the WineGUI repository key and a dedicated Signed-By source so future WineGUI updates can arrive through APT. The repository publishes packages for Ubuntu Noble, Plucky, and Resolute, plus Debian Trixie and Forky.

🐧 Better derivative support

WineGUI 4.3.4 improves that new automatic setup for compatible Ubuntu and Debian derivatives:

• Linux Mint, elementary OS, Zorin OS, Pop!_OS, compatible AnduinOS releases, and MX Linux now resolve their supported upstream Ubuntu or Debian suite correctly.
• Linux Mint 22.x uses the Noble repository instead of being rejected because of its Mint codename.
• Existing v4.3.3 installations where the key was installed but the source was skipped are repaired when the v4.3.4 DEB is installed.
• Detection remains strict: unsupported upstream suites are not silently redirected to another repository suite, and administrator-edited or deliberately removed source files remain protected.

After installing the DEB, run sudo apt update once to refresh package information from the WineGUI repository.

WineGUI Release v4.3.3

✨ New feature

• Added the official signed WineGUI APT repository at apt.winegui.melroy.org (it shows 404 page that is expected) for supported Debian and Ubuntu releases.
• Official release DEBs now install the WineGUI repository key and a package-specific Signed-By APT source, making future WineGUI updates available through the normal package manager.
• Added repository packages for Ubuntu Noble, Plucky and Resolute, plus Debian Trixie and Forky.

🔐 Packaging and update safety

• Added distribution-specific Debian package versions so packages for different suites remain distinct and upgrade correctly.
• Preserved historical package versions in the repository, allowing an earlier WineGUI version to be selected when needed.
• Protected repository trust from downgrade by older retained packages and preserved administrator-edited or deliberately removed APT source configuration.
• Unsupported Debian-based distributions still install WineGUI normally without adding an incompatible repository source.

After installing the release DEB, run sudo apt update once to load the new WineGUI repository metadata.

WineGUI Release v4.3.2

🐛 Bug fixes

• Fixed AppImage desktop actions failing with gio-launch-desktop not found on distributions whose GLib helper path differs from the Debian build environment.
• Bundled the matching gio-launch-desktop helper in the AppImage and explicitly directed the bundled GLib runtime to use it.
• Added packaging checks that fail the AppImage build if the helper or its startup hook is missing or unusable.

The fix keeps host tools such as Wine and UMU on the normal system PATH while making GLib desktop launching independent of distribution-specific helper locations.

WineGUI Release v4.3.1

🐛 Bug fixes

• Added RPM support for both Fedora-family and openSUSE Tumbleweed GTKmm package names through one portable dependency declaration.
• Updated RPM and Debian packages to depend on the current 7zip package instead of the transitional p7zip package.
• Prevented generated RPM packages from claiming ownership of shared system directories, fixing installation conflicts on Fedora.

The same RPM package has been installation-tested on Fedora 44 and openSUSE Tumbleweed. The Debian package has been installation-tested on Debian 13 Trixie.

WineGUI Release v4.3.0

✨ New features

• Complete GE-Proton integration through the WineGUI-managed UMU launcher
• Automatic UMU launcher installation, checksum verification, recovery, and atomic updates under ~/.local/share/winegui/umu
• Proton environment initialization, prefix preparation, protonfixes, compatibility configuration, and Steam Linux Runtime setup without requiring Steam
• Support for both legacy and architecture-suffixed GE-Proton release names, including GE-Proton 11.4 and 11.5
• GE-Proton runner filtering for supported 64-bit/WoW64 bottles
• True 32-bit bottles remain available through system Wine and regular Wine runners
• Prevented unsupported direct execution of GE-Proton's embedded Wine and wineserver
• Prevented WineGUI's DXVK and VKD3D installers from overwriting GE-Proton-managed components

🐛 Bug fixes

• Fixed GE-Proton runner setup and launch behavior for existing bottles, shortcuts, Winetricks, and prefix operations
• Improved runner discovery, installation safety, locking, cleanup, and interrupted-download recovery

⚡ Improvements

• GE-Proton failures now provide user-focused guidance while keeping technical details in logs
• Added extensive coverage for managed launcher installation, archive validation, checksum failures, concurrent installs, architecture handling, and GE-Proton execution paths

WineGUI Release v4.2.1

🐛 Bug fixes

• Launching WineGUI again is safe — a second launch now only brings the already-running window to the foreground. It no longer reconnects application signals or starts bottle preparation a second time, preventing duplicate Wine configuration windows, missing creation progress, and the “There is already running a thread” error.
• WineGUI no longer exits unexpectedly when a BottleManager worker fails — exceptions from its detached worker threads are now reported as operation failures instead of terminating the application.

WineGUI Release v4.2.0

✨ New features

• Wine Other Builds — the Wine runner window now also lists every build variant without a category of its own, such as the NTSync, FSync and release candidate builds by Kron4ek. These were fetched before, but never shown; 39 additional builds became installable

🐛 Bug fixes

• Fixed a crash caused by a leftover temporary directory with a malformed name in the Wine runners folder
• Fixed the interface freezing for the duration of a download, when a new runner operation was started at just the wrong moment
• Fixed WineGUI hanging on exit while a release list was being fetched or an archive was being extracted; both can now be interrupted
• Fixed two WineGUI instances removing each other's in-progress runner downloads
• Fixed a failed download being reported as successful when waiting for the download process failed
• Fixed a missing UseWine64 setting discarding the whole machine configuration, including its name, description, environment variables and application list

⚡ Improvements

• Selecting a machine is faster — the Wine version of every installed runner is now remembered, instead of starting a Wine process on each click
• You are now warned when a Wine runner could not be verified, because that release publishes no checksum
• Extra safety guards and unit tests around removing an installed Wine runner