Actually I have done that. I have setup xvfb and I've run 'Xvfb :1 &' and I run the command I need with: DISPLAY=:1 wine program.exe All works perfectly fine directly in shell. I have no idea why in php NOTHING happens. I get a blank screen. no output. no error. I tested with another exe file, which I created using C++ in windows. the program only print out a test line like 'hello!', when running. I ran that program in shell: wine program2.exe, and I received the text. Again I tested the same line in php, a blank screen. no output, no error. in mean time I DO get output for: 'wine --version', or 'ls -al' been looking for this my whole day. :(