Horun wrote on 2024-02-14, 02:49:

Curious what Shadowrun Returns version is the GOG version, just curious...

All of the S.R. GOG files are dated 2014. I do have it on Steam. Perhaps I should copy it over to the Athlon XP system and use a crack, just for scientific purposes, of course. In my desperate attempts to find a solution, have scoured the internet and haven't found any posts anywhere involving anyone playing it on Windows XP with an Athlon XP.

As long as installers keeps updating i`ve lost most of compabillities with GOG games for XP. For example i`ve played for years Heroes 3 Complete edition, know it simply wont start showing error message.

Studiostriver wrote on 2024-11-19, 05:49:

As long as installers keeps updating i`ve lost most of compabillities with GOG games for XP. For example i`ve played for years Heroes 3 Complete edition, know it simply wont start showing error message.

I think it might be because of this: https://www.gog.com/blog/the-gog-preservation-program/

From what I gather, GOG recently updated a bunch of older titles to improve compatibility with newer operating systems. I'm guessing this also made them not work under WinXP.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-11-19, 06:35:

Studiostriver wrote on 2024-11-19, 05:49:

As long as installers keeps updating i`ve lost most of compabillities with GOG games for XP. For example i`ve played for years Heroes 3 Complete edition, know it simply wont start showing error message.

I think it might be because of this: https://www.gog.com/blog/the-gog-preservation-program/

From what I gather, GOG recently updated a bunch of older titles to improve compatibility with newer operating systems. I'm guessing this also made them not work under WinXP.

I`m total idiot for not keeping old installer files. If someone happen to have those, that would fix the problem. Its the same game, but that installer file is updated. I assume older one would work again.

I got Kane & Lynch: Dead Men on a recent GOG sale, and discovered that their version of the game doesn't run on WinXP. The installer works fine, but the game itself crashes on start with a SHELL32.DLL error. It does work properly when installed on Windows 7.

Figured this might be worth mentioning, since the retail version of that game did support WinXP.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2024-11-30, 21:42:

I got Kane & Lynch: Dead Men on a recent GOG sale, and discovered that their version of the game doesn't run on WinXP. The installer works fine, but the game itself crashes on start with a SHELL32.DLL error. It does work properly when installed on Windows 7.

Figured this might be worth mentioning, since the retail version of that game did support WinXP.

Knowing GoG, it's probably not an issue with the original game itself but rather something they've added (like a video wrapper) that wasn't compiled with the right switches to be compatible with XP. They do this a lot and end up making more games incompatible with older OSes rather than "preserving" them like they claim to be doing.
Check the installation directory for suspicious looking DLLs - things like directdraw.dll or winmm.dll are a dead giveaway of a third-party wrapper.

GOG started modifying most of the original game launchers back in 2017 and have slowly removed all XP (and Win7 support in some cases) for Win9x/XP games. You have to carefully read their webpage now to make sure it will still run on XP.
Example of now: https://www.gog.com/en/game/heroes_of_might_a … omplete_edition see "their" Minimum system requirements (which is retarded for multi reasons) like this System Requires:
Windows (10, 11). Processor: 1.8 GHz. Memory: 2 GB RAM. Graphics: 3D graphics card compatible with DirectX 9.0c. DirectX: DirectX 9.0c !! (Who runs Win10 on a 1.8Ghz cpu with only 2Gb for gaming or any reason ?? )..
Also note bottom right about their "What improvements we made.." They have modded the game launchers/engines to be Win10/11 compatible which does break them for WinXP most of the time.
I have (the original HoMM3 cd from 1999 and also) got the GOG "Complete" in late 2014 (or there about) and it installs and runs under XP just fine. The new version(s) from them will not since they modded things.
If I was in charge of GOG I would have two diff downloads available for each game they have, one with their original pre-2017 build (if they did one) and another aimed at Win10/11 and future. But that is just my opinion and disk space is not that expensive with games of 600Mb.
So before you buy a game from GOG thinking to use it on a vintage OS or gear better read all the print on their webpage.
I quit buying anything from them in last few years since their #1 motto is: work on current and future most popular Windows PC configurations. 🤣 Like a Win10 or 11 on a 1.8Ghz cpu ??

If GOG ppl only read these forums. Doesn't make any business sense to not make files availible if they already paid to have them modified. So what your company paid somone to make somthing run on windows XP then your boss goes and deletes it and which then angers off the community so they dont buy your games anymore. I can understand not wanting to pay to make somthing run on XP now that doesn't make any sense but if it already existed youre just pissing money down the toilet.

jmarsh wrote on 2024-11-30, 22:48:

Check the installation directory for suspicious looking DLLs - things like directdraw.dll or winmm.dll are a dead giveaway of a third-party wrapper.

Yeah, that's what I usually do, but it didn't work in this particular case.

I'm guessing GOG directly modified the game's executable here.

I've been Linux gamer for a few decade's now... I switched to linux from windows 7, since it was in my opinion last decent windows.
Steam is the way to go in linux world. Games usually work right from release, or few days after release.
I've bought a few games from gog to transfer them to original hardware, but that's not working anymore, so there is no point buying anything from them anymore.

I can imagine gog games sell almost entirely to users of win10/11 and some linux and that very few would make the ability to un on windows XP a buy/not buy decision.

Hence, if there is additional effort required for them to get something running on XP in addition to doing whatever is needed to make a game run on w10/11 or linux then they wont do it

(i have a fair few gog games, all on w7 setups, no probs so far, have never tried putting them on xp as, well, they work already...)

The problem is that GOG is changing things which used to work and leaving no way to download the older version. If someone else bought the game and said it works on a certain OS, you might decide to buy it and end up getting a different version that doesn't work. Many times they don't even clearly state a version number so you can know what you're getting.

bakemono wrote on 2024-12-02, 15:24:

The problem is that GOG is changing things which used to work and leaving no way to download the older version. If someone else bought the game and said it works on a certain OS, you might decide to buy it and end up getting a different version that doesn't work. Many times they don't even clearly state a version number so you can know what you're getting.

Agree and exactly! They re-worked most all game installs and executables they had available pre-2019 that should and would work on XP, Vista, Win7, Win8 and Win10 to work only on Win7, 10 and 11 in 2019.
And now as of May 2024 they claim only Windows 10, 11. Yes you might be able to get them to run on Win7 still but not XP or Vista. Examples using HoMM3 Complete:

May 2018: https://web.archive.org/web/20180531101951/ht … omplete_edition XP, Vista, Win7, Win8 and Win10 <same req's as in 2015 and before)
May 2019: https://web.archive.org/web/20190531144347/ht … omplete_edition Win7, 10 and 11
May 2024: https://web.archive.org/web/20240531195944/ht … omplete_edition Windows 10, 11.

Something that may be of interest is that someone archived most of the gog games in 2015 (about 1200) that would/should run on whatever the original designed OS was.
Also this may be of interest REMOVED some talk about the various versions over the years....and current attempts at archiving...

bakemono wrote on 2024-12-02, 15:24:

The problem is that GOG is changing things which used to work and leaving no way to download the older version. If someone else bought the game and said it works on a certain OS, you might decide to buy it and end up getting a different version that doesn't work. Many times they don't even clearly state a version number so you can know what you're getting.

that's a good point, though i suspect from gog's view its 'unsupported', taking up server space and from what they can see isn't in demand anyway

i guess we should always personally back up everything that seems useful, treat everything from online as if it wont be there tomorrow

If GOG doesn't want to keep old installers, there could be a demand for an "Oldversions"-style site to archive them. At least the "last version to support OS bla-bla" should be reasonably kept.

As a retro PC gamer, I've started to dread seeing that "GOG Preservation Program" badge on a game's store page. They call it "preservation" but it's actually the opposite. If anything, a more appropriate name would be "modernization" since those changes were made to allow the game to run more smoothly on a modern Windows OS. Sadly, GOG doesn't seem to offer older (retro friendly) versions of their offline installers for download.

So nowadays, when I'm buying a game from them, I first check if it has that badge, and if not, I look at the system requirements to see if they list anything below Win10. While in the past, GOG would ship games with some wrapper files that were relatively easy to remove if you wanted to use your actual hardware, now they seem to recompile some games entirely, making it impossible to run them on a retro OS.

On one hand, I understand that their target audience largely consists of people who are using modern Windows, and who just want these old titles to run without too much fuss. Retro gamers playing on real hardware are definitively in the minority, and it's unlikely that we will be given even a second thought. Moral of the story: backup your offline installers before they get updated, or your favorite games will become incompatible with older operating systems.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2025-04-03, 05:32:

As a retro PC gamer, I've started to dread seeing that "GOG Preservation Program" badge on a game's store page. They call it "preservation" but it's actually the opposite. If anything, a more appropriate name would be "modernization" since those changes were made to allow the game to run more smoothly on a modern Windows OS. Sadly, GOG doesn't seem to offer older (retro friendly) versions of their offline installers for download.

So nowadays, when I'm buying a game from them, I first check if it has that badge, and if not, I look at the system requirements to see if they list anything below Win10. While in the past, GOG would ship games with some wrapper files that were relatively easy to remove if you wanted to use your actual hardware, now they seem to recompile some games entirely, making it impossible to run them on a retro OS.

On one hand, I understand that their target audience largely consists of people who are using modern Windows, and who just want these old titles to run without too much fuss. Retro gamers playing on real hardware are definitively in the minority, and it's unlikely that we will be given even a second thought. Moral of the story: backup your offline installers before they get updated, or your favorite games will become incompatible with older operating systems.

Just as said in the other thread (that linked me here), I have to say: We should ask GOG to let us download older versions of any game. I'm pretty sure you can do it alredy on STEAM, and I was sure I could do it on GOG too (when backing up Cyberpunk 2077, I noticed you could select wich file versions and even single patches to download). I'll have to check if I have some games with that badge, and check from browser what files are available. Because last time I checked GOG Galaxy won't even let you dowload offline installers.

EDIT: apparently they offer a "rollback" feature not from the browser store, but from the client Galaxy. Meaning you can have it download an older patch of the game and then copy it on the target PC. But, apparently, is tied to the publisher or dev leaving those older updates published.
Here's what they sa about it