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General discussionGOG GALAXY BETA(6179 posts) (6179 posts) 
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This is my favourite topic
Posted May 06, 2015
high rated
!!! PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING !!!

== BUG REPORTING ==

Please use: http://mantis.gog.com and include
1. steps to reproduce the bug (if possible)
2. screenshot or movie showing the bug (if possible)
3. Galaxy Client logs (see below)

Where can I find Galaxy logs on my computer?
On Windows 7 or later: C:\ProgramData\GOG.com\Galaxy\Logs
On Mac OS X: /Users/Shared/GOG.com/Galaxy/Logs

== FEATURE SUGGESTIONS ==

Please use: http://www.gog.com/wishlist/galaxy. For feature suggestions and votes on them please try do explain how Galaxy and its users will really benefit from it.

== IMPORT ALREADY INSTALLED GAMES TO GALAXY ==

1. For GOG games installed using installers from the last few months (so called Galaxy-compatible installers)
Click the Galaxy logo button on top of the sidebar and select "scan and import folders" - it will find all compatible games within that folder and add them to the Client.

2. For remaining GOG game INSTALLATIONS
Find the game in the Library (click on the image of the game), then click the More button and select "Manage Installation" -> "Import folder" and point the folder selector into the folder where that game is installed.

== KNOWN ISSUES ==
- throttling max download speed is not yet possible
- notifications related to incoming chat messages and friend requests does not always disappear instantly when consumed and may require reloading Store page
- games imported from existing installations will auto-update once, even if updating is disabled
- Moving Galaxy from /Applications on Mac OS X will stop the app from working
- Galaxy cannot be launched by other users on the same computer
Post edited October 03, 2016 by Liosan
Posted July 03, 2015
high rated
Hi Everyone,

Below you can find the changelog of GOG Galaxy.

Changelog 1.1.15 (September 7th, 2016):
Changes / Improvements:
• Added Wallet button in dropdown menu under user's avatar
• Performance improvements on UI speed and a little on CPU usage
• Enabled copying text in Galaxy forums
• History will now remember only the 100 most recent pages in history
Bugfixes:
• Fix for "Disk access problem" bug, which broke installation and updates of games. (Bug happened on Windows only, but general mechanism is better on OS X as well)
• Fix for Verify/Repair, which did not work in some scenarios (The above bug for example)
• Fix for "Server problem" while downloading backup installers or other goodies. They will now work, even if temporary download folder is same as destination folder
• Fixed situations in which Store page sometimes did not load properly after waking up computer

Changelog 1.1.16 (September 19th, 2016):
Improvements:
• Galaxy now supports H.264 codecs
• Much better handling of paying using third party processors (PayPal, paysafecard etc.)
• Friends and chat window now scale with the system scaling factor
• New and prettier GOG Eula will be used in games
• Better handling of loading timeouts

Bugfixes:
• "INSTALLED" label will appear all pages of the library now
• Fixed a bug with game time tracking for some games. Galaxy will now register more than one minute:)
• Fixed a bug in which Galaxy in rare cases could not be able to update the game (bug rather existed in rollbacks)
• Galaxy will no longer show a little bit of bare code upon launching
• Fixed blurred images in sidebar expanded list mode

Changelog 1.1.17(hotfix September 20th, 2016):
• Fixed crashes and 'Disk Access Problem' caused by updating Galaxy from 1.1.12 (and earlier versions) to 1.1.16

Changelog 1.1.18 (October 19th, 2016):
Improvements:
• More accurate game time tracking mechanism
• Improved mechanism showing current online status between friends

Bugfixes:
• Fixed a bug which caused Galaxy to stop tracking game time

Changelog 1.1.19 (October 25th, 2016):
Improvements:
• We have removed download size from Galaxy updater. It showed faulty data, as Galaxy Updater doesn't download > 100mb each time and only downloads differences. It will come back in nearest future, when it will show correct data:)
• The first check for game updates will be done 15s after Galaxy starts, instead of 5 minutes.
• OSX: Improved mechanism responsible for removing old files left by Galaxy updates
• OSX: Improved the way Galaxy handles installing games into protected locations like /Applications; you will receive a password prompt about a "Helper tool" installation

Bugfixes:
• Fixed "Essential components missing" error which sometimes appeared after fresh installation
• Fixed a situation where failure in Updater could lead to Galaxy not being able to launch
• Fixed self-update on OSX to properly delete leftover files
• Fixed friends window losing functionality after network loss and reconnect
• Fixed blurry Windows 10 Galaxy tray icon
• Galaxy will remember maximised window status

Changelog 1.1.20(November 2nd, 2016)
Bugfixes:
• Fixed installing XNA4 and other msi-based dependencies.
• Store page won't be reloaded twice upon logging in

Changelog: 1.1.21 (November 17th, 2016)
Improvements / changes:
• Added "with preview updates" suffix to Galaxy window title
• Small optimizations with memory and Galaxy loading time
• Small improvements with updater, it should fail less

Bugfixes:
• Fixed a bug with Galaxy refreshing pages
• Fixed occasional crashes

Changelog 1.1.22 (November 22nd, 2016)
Bugfixes:
• Galaxy will no longer freeze when downloading a game update and checking another game in library
• Galaxy should crash even less now:)

Changelog 1.1.23 (November 28th, 2016)
Bugfixes:
• Galaxy will be now able to reconnect to internet correctly, if computer was put to sleep and then woken up without (initially) Internet connection
• Downloading of games/updates should have less impact on starting other installations

Changelog 1.1.24(December 6th, 2016)
Bugfixes:
• Downloading an installer with Galaxy and using it to install the game should not result in redownloading the whole game again
• Updater should no longer report over 100% progress on download

Adjustments:
• Increased timeout for failures during sign in
• Increased timeout for "Loading Timeout"

Changelog 1.1.25 (December 20th, 2016)
Bugfixes:
• Fixed a crash when trying to install certain games (Game affected was 1979 Revolution: Black Friday).

Changelog 1.1.26 (December 23rd, 2016, Preview only)
Changes:
• Introduced new downloading mechanism

Changelog 1.1.27 (January 26th, 2017, Preview)
Bugfixes:
• Aborting or pausing downloads will be smoother (They will stop faster)
• Pausing downloads will no longer cause memory usage to go super high

Changelog 1.1.27 (January 31th, 2017)
Changes:
• Introduced new downloading mechanism
Bugfixes:
• Aborting or pausing downloads will be smoother (They will stop faster)
• Pausing downloads will no longer cause memory usage to go super high

Changelog 1.1.28 (March 10th, 2017)
Changes / Improvements:
- Better support for differential patches. They are now seperate depending on game's language and system bitness
- Italian & Japanese partial support + more Spanish translations
- Improved checking for new available updates of the games
- We'll sort available DLCs alphabetically
Bugfixes:
- Fixed a crash when Galaxy doesn't have permissions to the logs directory
- Fixed showing empty grey page after a while of inactivity
- Fixed infinite spinner after going to support page
- Fixed displaying of prices in cart when they were over 999 (Bug caused by a comma in the price)
- MacOS: Popup windows (for example chat) will no longer open as a tab but as a separate window instead
- MacOS: Fixed memory leak (~30MB upon GOG Galaxy launch)
- MacOS: Fixed memory leak while playing a game

Changelog 1.1.29 (March 14nd, 2017)
Changes:
- Changes in downloading mechanism, which allows for better control over download's flow
Bugfixes:
- Fixed displaying progress of differential patches (It did not display the "Extracting" status)

Changelog 1.1.30 (March 16th, 2017)
Bugfixes:
- Fixed a crash within games downloading mechanism

== PREVIEW UPDATES* ===

HOW TO ENABLE PREVIEWS?
Go to your Galaxy settings and check the option to receive preview updates.

HOW TO DISABLE PREVIEW?
- Uninstall Galaxy
- Download current installer from gog.com/galaxy
- Install Galaxy
- Import your games

Changelog 1.2.0 (March 22nd, 2017)
Changes and improvements:
- Cloud saves backup and syncing (supported games only)
- Screenshot capture with F12 (supported games only)
- In-game overlay with FPS counter and notifications (supported games only)
- Greatly improved chat, also in overlay
- Ability to enable or disable achievements, game time tracking, auto-updating games and more
- Desktop and in-game notifications system
- Ability to set bandwidth limit and scheduler
- New settings window
- Rarity information in achievements
- Abort button next to installation status
- Only one Galaxy Updater window will be shown in most cases
- GOG Galaxy updates will be downloaded in the background
- Games are now downloaded directly to their install directory, instead of a temporary location
- Galaxy changelog is displayed in Galaxy

Bugfixes:
- Fixed game time tracking issues
- Initial size of Galaxy Client window will respect Windows scaling
- Improved Windows 10 Galaxy tray icon
- Fixed a bug which caused Galaxy to redownload whole data in case of a failure of installation/update
- Thumbnail highlighting in media gallery now works properly
- Decreased client's network and CPU usage (especially for a lot of games)
- MacOS: Fixed situation when Galaxy Client could downloading due to App Nap
- MacOS: Fixed crash when logging out with "New post" popup open
- MacOS: Fixed game processes not being properly cleaned up after exiting
Post edited March 22, 2017 by TheTomasz
Posted March 26, 2016
high rated
For everyone who has a problem with missing api-ms-crt dlls in Client's versions post 1.1.5:
Please install one of those windows update: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2999226 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3118401
You may need to update Windows to meet the requirements for these:
For Windows 8.1 and for Windows Server 2012: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2919355
For Windows 7 and for Windows Server 2008 R2: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/976932

You can also try reinstalling Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributables 2015 (x86) if you meet above requirements.
Available here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=48145

If above instructions doesn't work for you, create a separate issue on mantis.gog.com and we'll try to help you individually.

Please note that this solution only helps with the missing api-ms-crt dlls.


========================================================================================


Answering this question: Why 1.1 doesn't work after updating to 1.2?

This is happening probably due to incompatible database from version 1.2, please delete this folder:
%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\GOG.com\Galaxy\storage
usually
C:\ProgramData\GOG.com\storage\

Then you'll have to use scan&import (menu under the top Galaxy logo) function to see your games back in Galaxy Client.
Attachments:
programsandfeatu.png (143 Kb)
Post edited March 27, 2017 by TheTomasz
Posted May 21, 2015
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Ryoga1980: WItcher 3 preloaded very fast, but today WItcher 3 patch is downloading at 0,1 MB/s (I'm on 300 Mbit connection)
Yes, the patch download can be very slowly right now, as it still propagates worldwide.
Posted May 21, 2015
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Ryoga1980: WItcher 3 preloaded very fast, but today WItcher 3 patch is downloading at 0,1 MB/s (I'm on 300 Mbit connection)
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Destro: Yes, the patch download can be very slowly right now, as it still propagates worldwide.
Someone upped the patch to some DDL service (Mediafire?) and spread the link here. But I can't find it right now.
Posted May 21, 2015
Whenever I try to install "Pinball Fantasies" I get a "Not Authorized" message, and cannot install. Any clues?
Posted May 21, 2015
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Runibl: Downloaded and installed Witcher 3 using the old fashion way (Gog downloader using website), while GOG Galaxy was not opened. (Only testing Galaxy with select smaller games so far).
This still added witcher 3 into the galaxy list of installed games somehow, complety on it's own.
It should not do this.
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green.anger: Sounds ok to me. If you configure Galaxy to install games to a particular folder and then manually install a game in that folder, it's natural to expect Galaxy will pick up the game. But I can understand some people may not like this behaviour. The best way of handling this would be having an option to switch manual/automatic games import.

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Runibl: Also later, when starting playing witcher 3 while GOG Galaxy was shut down. My brother could still see me as online on Galaxy, I also saw my name on the game menu. This really should not happen while Galaxy was shut off.
I had to uninstall Galaxy to be able to play Witcher 3, without being shown online.
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green.anger: This is really weird. I've just tested it with Galaxy constantly working. The first time I was logged out, launched TW3 and there was no name at all at the bottom right. Exited, logged in Galaxy, launched again and my nickname was there. Then again exited the game, logged out from Galaxy, launched the game and no nickname. Is it possible you had another instance of Galaxy running?
On the first point, I should mention that Witcher 3 was installed in a location and hard-drive, that Galaxy was not pointing to. Was not setup to see anything on that drive at all. Good call though, I should have mentioned that earlier,

On the 2nd point. I actually cannot recall if I checked for 2nd instance while this happened. But this is a fair point.
I have checked for multiple instances previously though, without having any. But this was not related to any problems or witcher 3, just out of habit.
Posted May 21, 2015
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TopSpiiiiiin: I wonder if Galaxy will be able to detect illegal copies* of GOG games at some point.

*Like if a family distributed games bought by one of the members to all remaining family members.
Let's say child 1 wants game A, then child 2 sees the game and wants it as well, now the family buys the game once but distributes it to both children because they don't want (or can't) buy the game twice. Not the best example but I can't think of any other example that consists of "possibly naive, not quite intentionally illegal actions"** off the top of my head.

**Meaning that they didn't do it to harm GOG/developers/publishers intentionally, they could've just thought it's more convenient or something. A little naive, I guess.
Galaxy already detects all GOG games installed on a computer if you let it scan. If any of the games are not owned by the account you're logging in as they still show up visible in your library (with no apparent way to avoid that if you wish), and it has an extra blue button that shows up labelled "CONNECT NOW" which allows you to "connect" the game to your account, listing benefits of connecting the game to your account on the right hand side.

There are a multitude of reasons why one might have a GOG game installed on their computer that are not associated with the account that they are logging into Galaxy with, but which are not "illegal". Among these include:

- owning more than one GOG account and owning games on each one of them which you have downloaded and installed onto a single computer.

- sharing a single PC between multiple family members or roommates whom might each have their own GOG account and own games all installed on the same computer at the same time.

- sharing a PC with a friend/guest who logs into their GOG account and installs one of their own games to play on your PC.

I'm sure there are probably other scenarios that people can think of in which a GOG game may be installed on a PC that is not associated with a single GOG account that similarly have nothing to do with pirating the games or owning "illegal" copies of them.

Galaxy can locate and detect GOG games when you tell it to scan for games, but if it finds games that you do not own in the particular Galaxy account you are logged into, it has no idea where they came from or any way to determine whether the games are associated with another person's GOG account that temporarily or permanently is sharing the same computer, or whether the games are pirated somehow. The worst possible thing that GOG could do would be to make any remote assumption or accusation against a customer in their software that they have an illegal copy of a game on their computer with no technological way of determining that. That would be a sure fire way to turn a paying customer into a non-customer jumping the gun and concluding they have an illegal copy of a game on their system.

I've observed that Galaxy does what I said above, because I have a GOG game on my system that a friend installed by logging into his GOG account (not through Galaxy) and downloading and installing it to show me a demonstration of the game, and then he played it while I made dinner one night. It's sitting there as-is untouched since. Galaxy detects it and offers up the blue "Connect Now" button which I haven't clicked on but which I presume takes you to the game's page on the store and possibly adds it to your shopping cart. That's actually a pretty cool way of managing it and rather convenient to the customer IMHO.

I think one of the fastest ways to lose the trust of a paying customer would be to have your software scan their computers to try to find copies of software that you then declare as "illegal" and attempt to accuse them, interfere with their account or uninstall or harm the software on their system in some way when you have absolutely no idea if they or anyone else that has used the computer has actually done anything wrong. Even if there were copy protection on the games and the software could search for cracked versions of games that are installed - often people who buy games will even crack them to remove CD/DVD checks or other annoyances the copy protection makes them suffer through.

If GOG or some other company were to start scanning computers and taking actions or making assumptions like this against their customers, it would be a very short amount of time until customers were outraged about violation of privacy and trust and jumping to conclusions and form a massive Internet lynch mob to boycott the company and it's software and it would not be just a big group of "pirates", but rather paying customers.

So no, I highly doubt GOG Galaxy or anything else coming out of GOG is ever going to even attempt to try to "detect illegal copies" of GOG games at any point, because there is technologiclaly no way to do it, and if they ever did try to do it they will cause massive outrage and exodus of paying customers being accused of false crimes and feeling like they're being spied upon which is exactly what it would be doing. That's not a way to run a business.

GOG built their business from day one on the foundation of trusting the customer in the biggest way possible - putting no DRM on the games they sell. That very act and core value of GOG's business would be completely overturned if they started spying on their customers and acting as judge, jury and executioner. That would be a very bad road to go down indeed.
Posted May 21, 2015
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Minmataro: When will other games get achievements? Since Witcher 3 now has them enabled im assuming it wont be difficult to at least give games that have achievements on Steam achievements on gog galaxy.
It's probably not difficult but it does require the developers of the game to have the source code available still and to add code to the game to keep track of various accomplishments and link to Galaxy's APIs to talk to Galaxy, so it's not a matter of dropping in a config file or something, it requires re-engineering the game. Even if a game has Steam achievements, that is a different API entirely and would not help in any way to add achievements to Galaxy really.

I expect that once Galaxy is stable that we'll see more of the newer releases coming out that would have Steam achievements on Steam also possibly have Galaxy achievements on Galaxy. But I wouldn't expect very many existing games on GOG to get retrofitted with Galaxy achievements or other features because it would take the developer to commit engineering resources and time to add the necessary code to their game(s) for it and push out an official update. It's not something that can be done by GOG themselves without having the source code of the games - which they don't have for most games. In order for a developer that does have the source code of their game to do it, they're probably going to have to feel strongly that adding the support for it will cause more people to go buy the game when it is patched with that feature which will draw renewed interest in the game and an influx of sales as a result which in turn will pay for the cost of developing support for the feature. Alternatively a company might add that support just because they're being cool to their gamers but I suspect few companies will "be cool to their gamers" TBH.

In short, I wouldn't recommend anyone holding their breath that we're going to see a tonne of games gain support for Galaxy achievements or other Galaxy specific features overnight or even a year from now. We'll probably see a handful of more recent games that are still currently supported by their developers perhaps, but probably very few if any older games that development has ceased on a long time ago.
Posted May 21, 2015
Ok so i start to DL the witcher 3 over night on my slow internet. I got 50% of the way done. I have to pop out of the house, and put my computer on sleep.

I got back, put the computer out of sleep - and start to continue to download then get told by Galaxy "not authorised" and it deletes 14 hours of downloading.

Right now I am not a happy camper.
Posted May 21, 2015
When I try download for example Witcher 3 patch it says Failed: Disk access problem. What to do?
Posted May 21, 2015
Ok, I've finally popped my "Galaxy is mega slow" cherry now. :) The 4 games I reported after a Galaxy reinstall yesterday as being detected by Galaxy but greyed out to not be able to click on Play, today it decided to try to update them all. The Witcher, The Witcher 3, Wing Commander 4 and Wing Commander Prophecy. Galaxy changed it's tune and unlocked the "Play" button for Witcher 3 halfway during updating it and then the update failed - but it still is allegedly playable. I'm scared to click on it. :)

Restarting galaxy has it trying to download updates for the games again but now it is experiencing that 0.1MB/s sluggishness everyone else has reported all week. So it looks like things are progressing forward and they've got around to rolling out the slowness to Canada now too so the rest of you can rejoice it is fixed now. hehehe

One more issue to report though too. Install Witcher 3 *and* the 2 free DLC with Galaxy, play the game -> works. Now uninstall Galaxy client, then delete the Program Files\ directory where Galaxy was completely as well as ProgramData dir. Now reinstall Galaxy client with a fresh download of its installer and several problems appear fixed, but then some random games do not work and are greyed out. Witcher 3 is one of them and it shows as installed but the DLC doesn't show up. Appears Galaxy can't keep track of or detect game's DLC and presumably wants you to reinstall it again. Not sure if the game itself feels this way, but Galaxy is unaware I have the 2 DLC installed in Witcher 3.

Yeah, it's redownloading some of my games now too like other's have reported. The games were untouched installs, it detected them but wouldn't let me play them for whatever reason, then after some random amount of time it decided to redownload them completely. I can see how people with low bandwidth caps would frown upon that. I'm even getting near my own cap this month mainly due to Galaxy testing/updating (voluntary), so I think I might end up having to uninstall it for a few weeks and go old school for a while. ;o(
Attachments:
galaxyserverprob.jpg (370 Kb)
Post edited May 21, 2015 by skeletonbow
Posted May 21, 2015
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Ryoga1980: WItcher 3 preloaded very fast, but today WItcher 3 patch is downloading at 0,1 MB/s (I'm on 300 Mbit connection)
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Destro: Yes, the patch download can be very slowly right now, as it still propagates worldwide.
Downloading the patch directly from GOG.com is very fast, though. Should just use that for the time being.
Posted May 21, 2015
why doesn't the client add all games i have installed? It only finds a few.
Posted May 21, 2015
No any rules.

5 minutes ago download speed was 0.3 MB/s and now it is 10 MB/s. Same with "directly from GOG.com".
Posted May 21, 2015
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klappis: why doesn't the client add all games i have installed? It only finds a few.
It looks for a special galaxy file included in all of the most recently updated game installers to detect a game being present. If you have an older install of a game that preceeds the introduction of these Galaxy metadata files then it wont auto-detect the given game and you need to manually import it instead and point Galaxy to the game's installation directory. Then it should find it.

Beware however that when Galaxy autodetects your already installed games, or you manually import them - it will connect to the Galaxy service to check the integrity of your game installation and automatically synchronize your installed game with the version on the Galaxy servers, bringing the game up to date if a newer version is available than what you have installed, or replacing any corrupted or modified files. This has the unfortunate side effect of blowing away game mods that modify game executables and possibly other data files included with a game, etc. So if you import such games you may have to disable auto-updates of that game and reinstall any mods/customizations you had installed previously.
Posted May 21, 2015
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TopSpiiiiiin: I wonder if Galaxy will be able to detect illegal copies* of GOG games at some point.

*Like if a family distributed games bought by one of the members to all remaining family members.
Let's say child 1 wants game A, then child 2 sees the game and wants it as well, now the family buys the game once but distributes it to both children because they don't want (or can't) buy the game twice. Not the best example but I can't think of any other example that consists of "possibly naive, not quite intentionally illegal actions"** off the top of my head.

**Meaning that they didn't do it to harm GOG/developers/publishers intentionally, they could've just thought it's more convenient or something. A little naive, I guess.
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Tarnicus: "What does it mean that games on GOG.com are DRM-free? It basically means that you actually own the games bought at GOG.com. Once you download a game, you can install it on any computer and re-download it whenever you want, as many times as you need." From GOG's FAQ.

The scenario you presented is not "illegal".
Except that you don't own the game, you just own a license, like with any other software. The developer/publisher truly owns the game. I guess seeing it as a volume license could be a way.
Sure it says that you can install it on multiple computers but it doesn't say that it's allowed to be used by multiple persons (simultaneously). Doesn't really matter for me in the end though because it was more like a (shower) thought from my side than an actual argument.

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TopSpiiiiiin: I wonder if Galaxy will be able to detect illegal copies* of GOG games at some point.

*Like if a family distributed games bought by one of the members to all remaining family members.
Let's say child 1 wants game A, then child 2 sees the game and wants it as well, now the family buys the game once but distributes it to both children because they don't want (or can't) buy the game twice. Not the best example but I can't think of any other example that consists of "possibly naive, not quite intentionally illegal actions"** off the top of my head.

**Meaning that they didn't do it to harm GOG/developers/publishers intentionally, they could've just thought it's more convenient or something. A little naive, I guess.
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skeletonbow: Galaxy already detects all GOG games installed on a computer if you let it scan. If any of the games are not owned by the account you're logging in as they still show up visible in your library (with no apparent way to avoid that if you wish), and it has an extra blue button that shows up labelled "CONNECT NOW" which allows you to "connect" the game to your account, listing benefits of connecting the game to your account on the right hand side.

There are a multitude of reasons why one might have a GOG game installed on their computer that are not associated with the account that they are logging into Galaxy with, but which are not "illegal". Among these include:

- owning more than one GOG account and owning games on each one of them which you have downloaded and installed onto a single computer.

- sharing a single PC between multiple family members or roommates whom might each have their own GOG account and own games all installed on the same computer at the same time.

- sharing a PC with a friend/guest who logs into their GOG account and installs one of their own games to play on your PC.

I'm sure there are probably other scenarios that people can think of in which a GOG game may be installed on a PC that is not associated with a single GOG account that similarly have nothing to do with pirating the games or owning "illegal" copies of them.

Galaxy can locate and detect GOG games when you tell it to scan for games, but if it finds games that you do not own in the particular Galaxy account you are logged into, it has no idea where they came from or any way to determine whether the games are associated with another person's GOG account that temporarily or permanently is sharing the same computer, or whether the games are pirated somehow. The worst possible thing that GOG could do would be to make any remote assumption or accusation against a customer in their software that they have an illegal copy of a game on their computer with no technological way of determining that. That would be a sure fire way to turn a paying customer into a non-customer jumping the gun and concluding they have an illegal copy of a game on their system.

I've observed that Galaxy does what I said above, because I have a GOG game on my system that a friend installed by logging into his GOG account (not through Galaxy) and downloading and installing it to show me a demonstration of the game, and then he played it while I made dinner one night. It's sitting there as-is untouched since. Galaxy detects it and offers up the blue "Connect Now" button which I haven't clicked on but which I presume takes you to the game's page on the store and possibly adds it to your shopping cart. That's actually a pretty cool way of managing it and rather convenient to the customer IMHO.

I think one of the fastest ways to lose the trust of a paying customer would be to have your software scan their computers to try to find copies of software that you then declare as "illegal" and attempt to accuse them, interfere with their account or uninstall or harm the software on their system in some way when you have absolutely no idea if they or anyone else that has used the computer has actually done anything wrong. Even if there were copy protection on the games and the software could search for cracked versions of games that are installed - often people who buy games will even crack them to remove CD/DVD checks or other annoyances the copy protection makes them suffer through.

If GOG or some other company were to start scanning computers and taking actions or making assumptions like this against their customers, it would be a very short amount of time until customers were outraged about violation of privacy and trust and jumping to conclusions and form a massive Internet lynch mob to boycott the company and it's software and it would not be just a big group of "pirates", but rather paying customers.

So no, I highly doubt GOG Galaxy or anything else coming out of GOG is ever going to even attempt to try to "detect illegal copies" of GOG games at any point, because there is technologiclaly no way to do it, and if they ever did try to do it they will cause massive outrage and exodus of paying customers being accused of false crimes and feeling like they're being spied upon which is exactly what it would be doing. That's not a way to run a business.

GOG built their business from day one on the foundation of trusting the customer in the biggest way possible - putting no DRM on the games they sell. That very act and core value of GOG's business would be completely overturned if they started spying on their customers and acting as judge, jury and executioner. That would be a very bad road to go down indeed.
Wow, very interesting, comprehensive post indeed. Thank you.
Post edited May 21, 2015 by TopSpiiiiiin
Posted May 21, 2015
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klappis: why doesn't the client add all games i have installed? It only finds a few.
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skeletonbow: It looks for a special galaxy file included in all of the most recently updated game installers to detect a game being present. If you have an older install of a game that preceeds the introduction of these Galaxy metadata files then it wont auto-detect the given game and you need to manually import it instead and point Galaxy to the game's installation directory. Then it should find it.

Beware however that when Galaxy autodetects your already installed games, or you manually import them - it will connect to the Galaxy service to check the integrity of your game installation and automatically synchronize your installed game with the version on the Galaxy servers, bringing the game up to date if a newer version is available than what you have installed, or replacing any corrupted or modified files. This has the unfortunate side effect of blowing away game mods that modify game executables and possibly other data files included with a game, etc. So if you import such games you may have to disable auto-updates of that game and reinstall any mods/customizations you had installed previously.
Thanks but manually add the folder doesn't make Galaxy find them all. It only finds a few of which i have installed.
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