[Wine] Icons, Xrender, Flash, Firefox, how to resolve problems

[xenginebuilder]

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.