wine users - Dec 2010 - Icons, Xrender, Flash, Firefox, how to resolve problems

I'll try and describe my dilemma, not really knowing what the base problem
is.
Ubuntu 10.04,  working .wine install (updated to 1.3.9.) I have a working
version of Firefox for windows 3.6.12 that I need to browse certain sites that
need some windows only plugins that don't work with Firefox for Linux.
I can not install the latest flash player because the Adobe screen where you
"agree" to continue is a blank red square with no buttons.
[Image:
http://i694.photobucket.com/albums/vv304/xenginebuilder/Screenshot-AdobeFlashPlayer101Installer.png
]-[Image:
http://i694.photobucket.com/albums/vv304/xenginebuilder/Screenshot-AdobeFlashPlayer101Installer-1.png
]

The diagnostic running from a command line is fixme:xrender:XRender_AlphaBlend
Unable to AlphaBlend without Xrender

I renamed my .wine directory and reinstalled wine. Installed the latest windows
firefox 3.6.13, and ran the flash installer which had the correct buttons and
seemed to install correctly. However, that .wine and firefox hangs on any page
load (Yahoo, Google etc) and becomes inactive and has to be killed. I've
tried all the usual tricks to make it work but fail.
I need to install flash on my original working Firefox and .wine but have not
been able to figure out the XRender issue, have removed and installed the video
drivers and am now back to the vanilla X that is default for Ubuntu. Never had
any difference except to make my system totally unstable with the various video
driver experiments.

On a related note, the icons for normal windows file management do not display
properly in my original .wine, but do in the new .wine
[Image:
http://i694.photobucket.com/albums/vv304/xenginebuilder/Notepad-Open1.png
]-[Image:
http://i694.photobucket.com/albums/vv304/xenginebuilder/Notepad-Open.png ]
I believe this is a related problem. 
I would have used the new .wine as default and just copied or re-installed the
software that I use, but Firefox hanging up on any page load is a non starter. I
would prefer to fix my old .wine since I already have a bunch of stuff that I
would rather not move since it works now. Any thoughts or tricks to resolve this
would be much appreciated.

Are you using a 32-bit or a 64-bit version of Ubuntu? How did you get your Wine
(from a package or did you build it yourself)?

When you are getting the XRender warning it means that either Wine was not able
to load the XRender library OR XRender is not enabled in your Xserver. Though
XRender not being enabled in the Xserver is quite strange. Even if a driver
doesn't accelerate XRender, then there is always a software fallback (though
you could disable that, but I doubt that was done). So I would guess that you
are missing a 32-bit XRender. Your Wine was definitely compiled with XRender
support else you would have seen different warnings.