http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16189
--- Comment #20 from Dan Kegel dank@kegel.com 2012-02-26 15:11:19 CST --- Aaaand it looks like my test was invalid anyway, since the direct downloads probably don't use Google Update. So to test Google Update versions, it seems you have use the very latest non-direct download, i.e. the one offered by http://www.google.com/earth/download/thanks.html#os=win#updater=yes (at the moment, it's http://dl.google.com/tag/s/appguid%3D%7B74AF07D8-FB8F-4d51-8AC7-927721D56EBB... )
That one gets past the early failure originally reported.
Whether this is because Wine has improved, or Google Updater has changed, I don't know. It's tempting to close this as abandoned, but leaving it fixed is probably ok. I'll file a new bug for the next problem.