http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14112
--- Comment #4 from Austin English austinenglish@gmail.com 2008-06-25 11:49:29 --- (In reply to comment #3)
If so. try install on a fresh, new ~/.wine as it works fine here
Is there a way to do this without ruining my existing install?
Yes, you can rename ~/.wine to ~/.wine2 or some such. After testing, 'rm -rf ~/.wine && mv ~/.wine2 ~/.wine' will restore your existing install.
Alternatively, you could do: $ WINEPREFIX=~/test wine setup.exe
Then delete ~/test when done testing.