diff --git a/README b/README
index f42758477dd13b22f069da76055afed488afe5e1..833c4305c95670ac3dd1108ad6aa8a96cf13259a 100644
--- a/README
+++ b/README
@@ -124,6 +124,10 @@ Once Wine has been built correctly, you can do "make install"; this
 will install the wine executable, the Wine man page, and a few other
 needed files.
 
+Don't forget to uninstall any conflicting previous Wine installation
+first.  Try either "dpkg -r wine" or "rpm -e wine" or "make uninstall"
+before installing.
+
 If you want to build the documentation, you can run "make" in the
 documentation directory.
 
diff --git a/tools/wineinstall b/tools/wineinstall
index 9f50a31070534f1a61090329c52d98fbcab1bc3e..eb37264ce802f31f79fb87415b9ba405230cd7d6 100755
--- a/tools/wineinstall
+++ b/tools/wineinstall
@@ -183,6 +183,14 @@ if [ $RET -eq 0 ]; then
   fi
 fi
 
+# check whether wine binary still available
+if [ -n "`which wine`" ]; then
+  echo "Warning !! wine binary (still) found, which may indicate"
+  echo "a (conflicting) previous installation."
+  echo "You might want to abort and uninstall Wine first."
+  std_sleep
+fi
+
 # run the configure script, if necessary
 
 if [ -f config.cache ] && [ -f Makefile ] && [ Makefile -nt configure ]