Wine 7.3 is out, more Joystick fixes and PE conversion

More work has been done on the Windows compatibility layer Wine in development version 7.3 that's out now.

This is the compatibility layer that allows you to run games and applications developed for Windows - on Linux (plus also macOS and BSD). It's a major part of what makes up Steam Play Proton and enables a ton of games to work on the Steam Deck. Once a year or so, a new stable release is made.

Release highlights:

• More large scale cleanups to support 'long' type.
• Proper support for API sets.
• Progress on the PE conversion of USER32 and WineALSA.
• A number of HID joystick fixes.

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 bug fixes as of this release they mentioned 15 solved helping games like Gray Matter, Black and White 2, Trails to Azure and a few miscellaneous fixes.