What's the oldest version of Windows the GOTY version here on GOG is guaranteed to run on? XP, Vista?
And please don't ask why would I run it on Vista or XP. Hardware-wise I'm still unsure. I've got my eyes on a few laptops. Any tips on running with older hardware are welcome. :)

The game was designed in the Windows XP era if I am not wrong, at least the original requirements demanded 98, 2000 or XP, and the GOG version overall does not come with any wrapper bundled to run under newer Windows, basically because it runs out of the box under Windows 10 and 11

My guess is that it could run even better under XP because of API requirements dx8.1, probably less problematic under XP

One known issue under XP that could affect some users are sound problems, solved reducing the sound acceleration

Installing it on older systems could be a problem. It will likely work on them, but you'll have to get it installed, and if I remember correctly, GOG's installers may have problems operating on anything older than Windows 7. Don't quote me on that, I've never attempted to install something on obsolete systems, personally. But I seem to remember that the Win XP/Vista crowd was up in arms at some point about their OS not even being supported in installers anymore.

I've installed a few on a Vista laptop I used to have. Not all of them ran, so that's why I'm asking about this specific game.

Morrowind doesn't have any registry dependencies or installation paths in its settings, meaning that as long as you can install it on any other computer, you can simply copy the installation folder to your WinXP system and launch it there just fine.

This also means that should you wish to test texture packs that permanently overwrite the original textures, you can just created multiple copies of the installation folder, create separate shortcuts for the main executable of each copied folder and then mod them all any way you like.

That's good to know. Thanks!

The installer wasn't changed and it worked on win xp before i went to windows 10 before 2022.

Alright, thanks for the confirmation!

Only one thing i remember now, you better download the installer before on a new pc with a new browser if you still didn't.
As i don't know if win xp has any browsers compatible with gog site for offline installers anymore.
There maybe still exists some special browsers that could work but i don't know

TES III Morrowind was designed in and for the changeover era from Win9x to Win NT5 (Win2000 and XP)
TES IV Oblivion was the first strictly Win NT5 as minimum OS, game in the series

From the Minimum System Requirements panel on my 4 CD, physical copies of Morrowind GOTY :
Windows 98/Me 128Mb RAM
Windows XP/2000 256Mb RAM
Intel 500 MHz Pentium III, Celeron, or AMD Athlon processor
8x CD/DVD ROM drive
1 Gb free hard disk space
Windows swapfile
DirectX 8.1 (included)
32Mb Direct3D compatible video card with 32-bit color support and DirectX 8.1 compatible driver
DirectX 8.1 compatible sound card
Keyboard, Mouse

So what, can the guy run the game or not?

That's exactly the idea. XP laptop that's never online. Just going to install a select few applications and games.

Recently installed it on an XP system and it ran without any problems. This issue has been raised (and a solution given) in the Gog "Games" account page will not load thread.
Any version of Windows is insecure unless you take steps to lock it down - XP has the advantage that there is more software available to do this (and, unimpeded by Kernel Patch Protection, can work at a lower level to be more effective).

In comparison, Windows 10 offers hideous performance (requiring about 10 times the memory footprint of XP) along with inbuilt adware, spyware and foistware - all of which pose their own security issues. Configuring XP securely isn't easy (a decent application firewall and process control software should be considered essential) but it can be done.

DX 8? I thought it was DX9.0c required to make it work. Though i really don't feel like grabbing my boxed copy of the game to look at the original specs.