From the WineHQ - About Wine page:
Wine began in 1993 under the initial coordination of Bob Amstadt as a
way to support running Windows 3.1 programs on Linux. Very early on,
leadership over Wine's development passed to Alexandre Julliard, who
has managed the project ever since. Over the years, as the Windows API
and applications have evolved to take advantage of new hardware and
software, Wine has adapted to support new features, all while being
ported to other OSes, becoming more stable, and providing a better
user-experience.
From that it sounds like there really is no specific version of Windows that WINE is based off of.
However, if you run wine regedit
and then navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
> Software
> Microsoft
> Windows NT
:
![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/XFlMe.png)
and select the CurrentVersion
key:
![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Jk5Y.png)
you'll see a registry string titled ProductName
.
In my case, running Wine 1.6.2, the value for ProductName
is Windows XP
. Then, looking at the CSDVersion
string's value, you'll notice that it says Service Pack 3
.
Thus, your safest bet would most likely be that Wine is most similar to Windows XP (Service Pack 3).
EDIT
I've discovered something else in WINE. If you install winetricks
and then open it up, then click on Select the default wineprefix:
![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/WlSS8.png)
Then click Run winecfg:
![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VFvTD.png)
You can change the version of Windows that WINE, I guess, emulates? You can change the displayed Windows version at the very least:
![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/pwGTS.png)
Best Answer
Yes, you can find compatibility reviews at the Wine Application Database.
Not only can you find compatible software, you can submit your own apps and reviews to help others.