Where Is the Wine Prefix Folder?
Default ~/.wine prefix with drive_c and registry files, plus how WINEPREFIX moves it.
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A Wine prefix is a self-contained fake Windows installation: a C drive, registry hives and per-user state. The default one lives at ~/.wine and every Windows program you run without overrides installs into it.
Custom prefixes isolate apps from each other through the WINEPREFIX variable. Back up a prefix folder and the app plus its registry travel together.
Where Wine stores this, by platform
~/.wine
Contains drive_c with windows, users and Program Files trees, plus system.reg, user.reg and userdef.reg registry hives. Set WINEPREFIX=/path/to/prefix to use another one. Never share one prefix between Wine versions casually; mismatched versions corrupt it. Back up with all Wine processes stopped.
Frequently asked questions
How do I reset a Wine prefix without reinstalling Wine?
Stop all Wine processes, delete ~/.wine (or your custom prefix), and run winecfg to regenerate a clean one. Installed Windows apps inside go with it.
Where are my files inside a Wine prefix?
Under drive_c/users/<you>/ for profile files, mirroring Windows. Point file dialogs at ~/.wine/drive_c to browse it from Linux tools.
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