After installing Wine, PlayOnLinux and a few games, I started noticing some problems installing games and running them.  Turns out Windows Packages (sometimes known as Libraries) are critical for games to run.  Since Wine is mimicking the way Windows runs games we need to have the correct Packages for the Windows games to run.

Some examples are:

• Direct X
• Dot NET Framework
• XNA
• Flashplayer
• Unityplayer

We won't need all of these packages ALL at once, but having the popular ones installed in our default .wine directory will be a good start.
This tutorial will walk you through Wine, Winetricks and PlayOnLinux step by step to get all these packages install correctly with Mint 13.

This configuration will act as a "Template" so we can create Virtual Drives in PlayOnLinux.

Then when we add the same Packages to our PlayOnLinux Virtual Drive it will be quick and easy.  I listed each package by their names and and grouped service packs with their respective package.  For example:  Dot NET Framework 2.0 is grouped with the Dot NET Framework 2.1 Service Pack.

This tutorial follows a specific order for installing packages, but I don't believe there is an exact order to get everything working.  For example:  if you try to install Dot NET Framework 3.5 first, it will automatically install Dot NET Framework 1.1, 2.0 and their respective service packs for you.  I prefer to do them one at a time so when there is an error, I can get it fixed before continuing to the next one.

Lets begin...

Winetricks Setup

Open Winetricks

Select the Default Wine Prefix

Click OK.

We'll start simple... Select Install a Font.

Click Ok

I selected all fonts below:

• allfonts
• consolas
• corefonts
• droid
• liberation
• lucidia
• opensymbol
• tahoma
• takao
• uff
• unifont
• wenquani

Click Ok

Wait as they download one by one and install into the Windows fonts folder.

When Winetricks is done installing it will default back to the "What would you like to do to this Wineprefix" menu

Note: all of the Windows Fonts, DLL's and components are downloaded to /home/username/.cache/winetricks folder. Its a good idea to back up this folder for future use WHEN you have to start over.