https://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=41577
--- Comment #14 from proveit@tutamail.com --- Would you consider gecko an acceptable alternative to IE8?
Now that you mention it, I noticed that I am NOT prompted by Wine to install mono or gecko. This is strange. I'm using the development branch, which says "WineHQ does not at present package wine-gecko or wine-mono. When creating a new wine prefix, you will be asked if you want to download those components. For best compatibility, it is recommended to click Yes here."
When I last used Wine, I did get these prompts, so why isn't it prompting me to install gecko or mono now? I don't have packages wine-gecko or wine-mono installed, so there can't be a conflict.
According to the Gecko page, to install manually, I just have to copy the wine_gecko-2.47-x86.msi file to /usr/share/wine/gecko. Well, /usr/share/wine does not even exist, so I created the directory, then created gecko directory too and dropped the file in there. No change; it still crashes.
So the next test I can do is to try running the patcher with Gecko, but Gecko has to let me install it first.