What the Big 20H2 update broke was apps like those MIDI related programs like VirtualMidiSynth or Munt. Something was changed in how Windows messed with its Midi Synth and those apps stopped working fine until the develpers fixed them later.

Aside that kind of things the game breaking power of the update was the same as before, what was broken in Windows 10 was broken in 20H2 as well, and relatively old games needed workarounds and wrappers. At least it is my experience.

Thanks to everyone for their responses. Based on the feedback it sounds like the 20H2 is not a very risky update. So I opted to apply it. No problems so far.

Thanks!

So far so good on my end. Everything seems to run ok.

I have been 20H2 (with all the patches that Windows Update offers me) for a while now and its run every game I have tried including games that rely on D3D8 and D3D9. (Command & Conquer Renegade for example is d3d8 and runs just fine)

Uhm, let me see....

Diablo II - works.
Prince of Persia 3D/Sands of Time/Warrior Within/Two Thrones/2008: working.
Diablo III - works.
Street Fighter IV - works.
Control Ultimate Edition - works.

Etc. etc. etc., you get the point ;-)

P.S. I have NEVER installed new Windows 10 versions if I didn't want to do so...

https://www.sordum.org/9470/windows-update-blocker-v1-6/

Aaargh!
Phew...

I'm running 20H2 19042.804 and i have 100's of games and just ran though everything from dosbox, 95, 98, directX 9 10 11 and 12 and they all work fine... and all direct draw games also work fine.

Dx9 still installs without issue so its really not a problem, just archive it... and if its needed GOG will combine with their installers and galaxy.

Whoops - just caught your post.

Okay, so I knew that - but unfortunately I don't know how to apply it as a fix to my exact situation.

I can, and previously have, updated the vanilla CoP to OpenXray - seems to work fine. Based on your post reminding me about it - I dl'd the current versions (Dec. 2020 both the "Players" version and the "Modders" version). Again, seem to work fine.

But here's the problem: I'm not wanting to play "vanilla". I'm trying to play any one of the several version of the SGM mod ( as found here [in case you aren't familiar with it]: SIGEROUS (SGM) ).

I can't get OpenXray to work with SGM. It might seem some "merging" or something similar that is beyond my ability. Can't find anything on the internet on getting it to work.

Anyways, thanks for the pointer - it reminded me about OpenXray and so I tried the latest version; and it might help someone else as well..

Oh, this is very useful!!!

I have no experience with modding S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and I definitely don't know Open-Xray so I can't help you, furthermore I think that the mod needs to be ported to the new engine.

I know the author from the GSC forum back when I was there, he used to be active and always very helpful, you may try there, there are mod discussion and mod download sub sections in the COP forum, or you mayask in the MODDB comment section about it.

It is just that those two particular utilities (VirtualMIDISynth and Munt) are very important to me for enjoying old DOSBox games, so I've been kinda fearing the day they stop working, e.g. MS just decides that the whole MIDI thingie in Windows is completely irrelevant nowadays.

Which reminds me, is it somehow possible to achieve that same that those two pieces of code do, also on Linux? You can obviously run DOSBox, but can you

a) get emulated Roland MT-32/CM-32L music with the DOSBox games, like you can with Munt?

b) get better General MIDI music by using replacement soundfonts, which you can do with VirtualMIDISynth?

EDIT: Well, at least a) seems to be possible:

http://www.marshalltradecorp.com/coDe/old-game-info/linux-roland-mt32-munt-and-dosbox.html

EDIT: And maybe b) too:

http://timidity.sourceforge.net/#info

I need to try these out in Linux...