Wine works fine and opens .exe files on my 8.10 install, so try the
following.
Open Nautilus
Navigate to your Wine C: drive folder
Find a .exe file - any .exe will do
Right click on it
Go to the 'Open with' tab
Select 'Wine Windows Program Loader' *
Click OK
All .exe files will now open with Wine. Even DOS programs that need to
be run with DOSBox (well, they'll try, anyway :-) ).
HTH,
David Shaw
* If Wine Windows Program Loader is not listed, click on 'Add' and find
it in the list. If it's not in the list, click on 'Use a custom
command' and get to it that way.