I have a program that is copyright 1993 and runs on WindowsXP native, but uses memory tricks that confuse everything I've tried (and I've tried a lot ... bottles, soda, ). The program actually starts, but a Win32 API returns FFFFFFFF when I take a basic action. I tried installing a full VC6 runtime with no joy because the app is using "old memory tricks" from the Windows NT era. Forcing low memory in wine didn't help. I couldn't get it going on 86Box or PCem either, but apparently Wine 5.0 accidentally preserved this memory bug, so I wanted to try it.
I thought it would be easy...I installed Lutris and although it didn't include Wine 5.0, I was able to wrangle it into Lutris' UI using ProtonUp-QT. But when I try to install the runner, Lutris refuses.
So I figured I'd try to install an old version of Lutris, back in the days before they took away Wine 5.0 runners. That turned out to be nightmarish because the took away the .deb files for the Lutris version I need (2020).
I found an old Lutris deb file (0.5.7), but it wouldn't install because of dependencies that also were no longer available in an easy access way. I downloaded the first dependency (libwebkit2gtk-4.0...), but THAT had several dependencies and I figured there had to be an easier way.
What would you do if you wanted to run something under Wine 5.0?
I'm not sure Multistack is the answer. It's a 32 bit app. The problem is that the bare metal processor hardware reacts differently to the memory tricks than the virtual hardware.
Certainly not worth a dual boot, and I'm trying not to use a VM for this.
The program does run in XP native, but there's no guarantee XP in a VM would work. The program does not work in Windows 7 native, but does work in the Virtual PC that comes with Windows 7.
...I typed up a whole bunch of instructions then looked up and saw you'd already tried Bottles. Sigh. You note that you found Wine 5.0 in Lutris but Lutris refused. Trying to follow your path through this, I saw that ProtonUp-QT only offers Wine-Lutris back to 5.7, so my instructions might have been worth keeping anyway. Sigh again. On the bright side, since you've done those things, you don't need the level of handholding I'd written. Memo to me: Don't help without fully reading the original post.
ANYWAY.
Try installing ProtonPlus instead of ProtonUp-Qt. They're effectively the same thing, but ProtonPlus supports a wider array of runners. The runners available in ProtonPlus vary depending on your selected launcher (Steam, Bottles, etc.), and I don't use Lutris, so I can't tell you what would be available for it, but Bottles has Wine options, one of which is vanilla Wine. It takes a lot of clicking "load more," but you can get back to Wine 5.5 in Bottles that way. I confirmed that Bottles recognized it as a runner, but haven't tested actually using it. Good luck.
I probably appear a lot smarter about it than I really am, LOL! See, I was just asking the AI chatbot stuff and blindly trying what it suggested. I've found that I can waste a whole lot of time that way, compared to what an experienced person would do. The experience person would reply, "yeah, but why do (that) when (this)", and the AI would say "You are right, that doesn't make sense because of (this)".
The LLM chat model put me at a dead-end when it said to install Wine 5.0 under Lutris, then Lutris refuses the old Wine. But I have to believe that someone, somewhere has figured out the proper incantation to get Wine 5.0 running on Zorin or Zorin-like OS. If I had the ability to run a Lutris build, I could do it, but that would be a bridge too far for me to go for this.