I would hazard a guess at the addition of "Galaxy-compatible manifests", whatever those are (I think it's the addition of some data files to assist with integration/import into Galaxy, e.g. for Lure of the Temptress it's goggame-1207658694.{dll,hashdb,ico,info}).

EDIT: .dll? hmmm...

Galaxy compatibility.

I believe the DLL is used to register the game with the Games Explorer in Vista/7. Pre-Galaxy games typically included a goggame.dll or similar for this purpose.

Generally, no, but I vaguely recall someone from GOG that this was what they had to do in order to make certain things work. It *may* have been using the boxart as an icon, but I'm not sure.

From MaGog's logs for 1 May:

NOTE! REMOVED FILE Risen 2: Dark Waters, downloadables, Original game: Risen 2: Dark Waters: Windows installer, English+German+Polish+Russian+French+Italian+Spanish+Czech (part 1 of 6) (setup_risen2_2.0.0.6.exe; Wed, 09 Apr 2014 11:34:05 GMT; 788,552)

NOTE! REMOVED FILE Risen 2: Dark Waters, downloadables, Original game: Risen 2: Dark Waters: Windows installer, English+German+Polish+Russian+French+Italian+Spanish+Czech (part 2 of 6) (setup_risen2_2.0.0.6-1.bin; Wed, 09 Apr 2014 11:45:15 GMT; 1,565,219,200)

NOTE! REMOVED FILE Risen 2: Dark Waters, downloadables, Original game: Risen 2: Dark Waters: Windows installer, English+German+Polish+Russian+French+Italian+Spanish+Czech (part 3 of 6) (setup_risen2_2.0.0.6-2.bin; Wed, 09 Apr 2014 11:45:17 GMT; 1,566,000,000)

NOTE! REMOVED FILE Risen 2: Dark Waters, downloadables, Original game: Risen 2: Dark Waters: Windows installer, English+German+Polish+Russian+French+Italian+Spanish+Czech (part 4 of 6) (setup_risen2_2.0.0.6-3.bin; Wed, 09 Apr 2014 11:45:11 GMT; 1,566,000,000)

NOTE! REMOVED FILE Risen 2: Dark Waters, downloadables, Original game: Risen 2: Dark Waters: Windows installer, English+German+Polish+Russian+French+Italian+Spanish+Czech (part 5 of 6) (setup_risen2_2.0.0.6-4.bin; Wed, 09 Apr 2014 11:44:54 GMT; 1,566,000,000)

NOTE! REMOVED FILE Risen 2: Dark Waters, downloadables, Original game: Risen 2: Dark Waters: Windows installer, English+German+Polish+Russian+French+Italian+Spanish+Czech (part 6 of 6) (setup_risen2_2.0.0.6-5.bin; Wed, 09 Apr 2014 11:38:07 GMT; 475,159,583)

NOTE! ADDED FILE Risen 2: Dark Waters, downloadables, Original game: Risen 2: Dark Waters: Windows installer, English+German+Polish+Russian+French+Italian+Spanish+Czech (part 1 of 3) (setup_risen2_2.1.0.12.exe; Wed, 29 Apr 2015 12:30:53 GMT; 34,963,168)

NOTE! ADDED FILE Risen 2: Dark Waters, downloadables, Original game: Risen 2: Dark Waters: Windows installer, English+German+Polish+Russian+French+Italian+Spanish+Czech (part 2 of 3) (setup_risen2_2.1.0.12-1.bin; Wed, 29 Apr 2015 12:44:05 GMT; 4,194,304,000)

NOTE! ADDED FILE Risen 2: Dark Waters, downloadables, Original game: Risen 2: Dark Waters: Windows installer, English+German+Polish+Russian+French+Italian+Spanish+Czech (part 3 of 3) (setup_risen2_2.1.0.12-2.bin; Wed, 29 Apr 2015 12:39:27 GMT; 2,845,908,729)

NOTE! CHANGED FILE Risen 2: Dark Waters, downloadables, DLC: Risen 2: Dark Waters Gold Edition Upgrade: Windows installer, English+French+German+Spanish+Italian+Polish+Russian+Czech (setup_risen2_gold_upgrade_2.0.0.6.exe ***TO*** setup_risen2_gold_upgrade_2.1.0.12.exe; Wed, 09 Apr 2014 11:36:54 GMT ***TO*** Wed, 29 Apr 2015 12:31:05 GMT; 34,847,496 ***TO*** 7,785,136)

From MaGog's logs for 1 May:

NOTE! CHANGED FILE Stargunner, downloadables, Windows installer, English (setup_stargunner_2.0.0.4.exe ***TO*** setup_stargunner_2.1.0.6.exe; Fri, 13 Sep 2013 12:42:55 GMT ***TO*** Wed, 29 Apr 2015 13:59:33 GMT; 50,685,552 ***TO*** 55,432,872)





NOTE! CHANGED FILE Teenagent, downloadables, Windows installer, English (setup_teenagent_2.0.0.12.exe ***TO*** setup_teenagent_2.1.0.16.exe; Thu, 23 Jan 2014 19:02:14 GMT ***TO*** Wed, 29 Apr 2015 13:59:47 GMT; 15,768,216 ***TO*** 19,429,296)





NOTE! CHANGED FILE Treasure Adventure Game, downloadables, Windows installer, English (setup_treasure_adventure_game_2.0.0.4.exe ***TO*** setup_treasure_adventure_game_2.1.0.5.exe; Thu, 04 Apr 2013 18:30:07 GMT ***TO*** Thu, 30 Apr 2015 15:10:48 GMT; 116,046,856 ***TO*** 116,417,440)

Does this mean that I'll have to backup ALL my games again because they all will receive a Galaxy update?

This made my day. :D

From MaGog's logs for 2 May:

NOTE! CHANGED FILE Tyrian 2000, downloadables, Windows installer, English (setup_tyrian_2000_2.0.0.11.exe ***TO*** setup_tyrian_2000_2.1.0.13.exe; Tue, 21 Jan 2014 16:48:10 GMT ***TO*** Wed, 29 Apr 2015 14:00:02 GMT; 17,546,304 ***TO*** 21,506,696)





NOTE! CHANGED FILE Ultima Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams, downloadables, Windows installer, English (setup_worlds_of_ultima_martian_dreams_2.0.0.17.exe ***TO*** setup_worlds_of_ultima_martian_dreams_2.1.0.18.exe; Thu, 04 Apr 2013 17:39:10 GMT ***TO*** Wed, 29 Apr 2015 14:01:32 GMT; 38,393,424 ***TO*** 39,607,184)





NOTE! CHANGED FILE Ultima™ 4: Quest of the Avatar, downloadables, Windows installer, English (setup_ultima4_2.0.0.19.exe ***TO*** setup_ultima4_free_2.1.0.46.exe; Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:31:05 GMT ***TO*** Wed, 29 Apr 2015 14:00:49 GMT; 26,824,360 ***TO*** 17,364,072)





NOTE! CHANGED FILE Warsow, downloadables, Windows installer, English (setup_warsow_2.1.0.12.exe ***TO*** setup_warsow_2.2.0.16.exe; Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:57:08 GMT ***TO*** Wed, 29 Apr 2015 14:03:17 GMT; 530,463,584 ***TO*** 530,921,800)





NOTE! CHANGED FILE Worlds of Ultima: The Savage Empire, downloadables, Windows installer, English (setup_ultima_the_savage_empire_2.0.0.26.exe ***TO*** setup_ultima_the_savage_empire_2.1.0.27.exe; Thu, 04 Apr 2013 18:24:46 GMT ***TO*** Wed, 29 Apr 2015 14:01:15 GMT; 53,806,064 ***TO*** 55,037,592)





NOTE! REMOVED FILE Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings, The - Enhanced Edition, downloadables, Linux installer, English+Chinese+Czech+French+German+Hungarian+Italian+Japanese+Polish+Russian+Spanish+Turkish+Portuguese+Korea n (gog_the_witcher_2_assassins_of_kings_1.0.0.4.tar.gz; Mon, 08 Sep 2014 15:57:53 GMT; 21,175,055,716)

NOTE! REMOVED FILE Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings, The - Enhanced Edition, downloadables, BETA standalone install (gog_the_witcher_2_assassins_of_kings_1.1.0.5.tar.gz; Tue, 10 Feb 2015 20:32:30 GMT; 21,175,316,335)

NOTE! REMOVED FILE Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings, The - Enhanced Edition, downloadables, Patch to BETA version (gog_the_witcher_2_assassins_of_kings_patch_1.1.0.5.tar.gz; Tue, 10 Feb 2015 18:19:02 GMT; 18,782,148)

NOTE! ADDED FILE Witcher 2: Assassins Of Kings, The - Enhanced Edition, downloadables, Tarball archive (gog_the_witcher_2_assassins_of_kings_1.2.0.7.tar.gz; Wed, 29 Apr 2015 19:11:34 GMT; 21,175,280,399)

Only if you want to use Galaxy, I presume.

From MaGog's logs for 2 May:

NOTE! CHANGED FILE Akalabeth: World of Doom, downloadables, Windows installer, English (no change in name; Mon, 22 Dec 2014 15:19:20 GMT ***TO*** Wed, 29 Apr 2015 13:57:20 GMT; 15,584,960 ***TO*** 19,005,672)





NOTE! CHANGED FILE Beneath a Steel Sky, downloadables, Windows installer, English (setup_beneath_a_steel_sky_2.0.0.9.exe ***TO*** setup_beneath_a_steel_sky_2.1.0.10.exe; Sun, 26 Jan 2014 23:13:16 GMT ***TO*** Wed, 29 Apr 2015 13:58:03 GMT; 82,514,328 ***TO*** 81,328,048)

NOTE! CHANGED FILE Beneath a Steel Sky, downloadables, Windows installer, French (no change in name; Thu, 06 Nov 2014 15:23:37 GMT ***TO*** Wed, 29 Apr 2015 13:58:06 GMT; 83,338,776 ***TO*** 81,328,920)

Only if you want the changes added in the update for Galaxy. GOG generally doesn't flag updates for user notification unless they are actual game executable/content updates or some other major thing that every user is likely to benefit from getting right away. For minor packaging updates (such as Galaxy support metadata files) update notifications are not sent out due to the trivial nature of the update and a combination of not wanting to alert people for minor things, and also that probably a majority of people wouldn't want to re-download many hundred megs or even gigs of data just for a minor update.

What that means for us is that whether we want to have the absolute latest update that includes such trivial things is entirely up to our own desires and judgment. I suspect most people wont want to redownload things for such minor changes. I personally prefer to have the latest updated packaging as I prefer to install from my local archives but want to have the newest bits when I install or go looking for a manual etc. Of course I also want the Galaxy metadata too. :)

But alas, there are so many updates that don't get notifications these days that I think probably 90% or more of my local archive stash is probably outdated compared to the current bits. Some of the current bits are in a broken state though, such as the various bugs tracked in the "what did just break" thread et al. so I'm downloading the occasional update here and there but reluctant to download everything to have to turn around days/weeks later and re-download it again when they fix something.

My recommendation would be to wait for all the churn to end and return to some level of stable normalcy with the packaging again unless there is a critical update or bug fix in a game, or one has no local backup at all but feels it important to have one right away.

That is exactly my problem. WIthout getting the flags how should I know if the changed game that mrkgnao reports is a true update or "only" a Galaxy enhancement? So to prevent my games being outdated I download every change that is reported here as long as the flags are working properly again.

I've got 327 or so bundled or 423 unbundled games and my archives are almost entirely pre-unbundling so a massive number of my titles will need to be re-downloaded to have the current bits and I'm not 100% sure that they have all been updated to their final state and had the majority of glaring glitches resolved yet so I'm hesitant to redownload it all as it'll take a few months to spread it out only to have to do it all over again likely.

So right now I'm selectively re-downloading games I intend to play right away and which seem to have been "repaired" from breakage they have encountered such as product_bonus_* problems and various other issues. My entire catalogue bundled was about 500-550GB in size but from what I understand after the unbundling many games have increased in size either for no particularly good reason, or because all of the bonus extras are now duplicated between them.

I think what I'm going to do in the future to minimize disk space wastage is move my GOG backup archives to an SMB file share on my Linux file server upstairs. That way I can have an automated daily task run periodically that uses the "hardlink" command to seek out file duplicates and replace them with hard links, however it'd be nice to not actually have to download duplicates in the first place - and without having to do manual labour to determine there are duplicates.

Basically I am making do for now minimalistically while I wait for GOG.com's various repackaging related churn to complete and reach a certain level of stability that gives me a vibe that it is time to re-download everything with lower risk that it will change in a few days/weeks all over again. I think it might even be a good idea for me to wait until a month or so after Galaxy launches officially but hard to determine when the best time might be currently.

Another problem is that I'm not 100% certain I want to get rid of my existing older backups as I might not prefer all of the new packaging for every game, so I'm probably going to end up with some subset of games with both the old and new packaging. I may end up having to buy a new HDD to contend with that. :)