That's all true, I can't really argue against it. On the other hand, the user buys a game that is guaranteed to work on a certain system (if the game was bought back when it was still listed as such on the game's page). Is it fair for GOG to essentialy unilaterally replace that product in the users library with another which isn't, in fact, the one he bought or wanted?

I mean, when a game gets removed from GOG's catalogue we get to keep it in our library if you we bought it before the removal. If, say, Tales From the Borderlands suddenly disappeared from my library I would not be ok with it, even though I do have it backed up. And people who don't have it backed up wouldn't and shouldn't be appeased with "well, it's your fault if you didn't back it up". So why is it different when, essentially, the same happens here. One could easily argue the games the OP bought got, functionally, removed. It's just that they got replaced with new versions he did not want.

This is serious and a long list.
I am totally with you: sometimes we purchase games simply because they work on our old rig above anything else.
Therefore, GOG should keep the "last" compatible version of the games available on our libraries.
I suggest to contact support and ask for that

I searched on the community wishlist and found/voted this 2 related:
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/continued_windows_xp_support
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/please_keep_up_windows_xp_compatibility_for_dos_and_xp_games

If you agree with those, please vote and comment refering to this thread. I invite the rest of the forum as well.

I have a couple of old PCs and I plan to use them running old games I have in GOG, so I share the pain somehow

@Nightgazer

Probably you should use the gog database

https://www.gogdb.org/product/1207658746#builds
Shows the Builds for Beyond Good & Evil™ (1st in your list)
it says 2015-01-14 and the Changelog does not show any changes

And this is for a game I'd like to use as part of my plan:

https://www.gogdb.org/product/1207664053#changelog
Says during the last year (I bought it in 2020) some properties changed.
I need to check in real life if that translates to a problem running in XP...

I hope you find the database useful

windows xp?
isnt it dangerous to use that now? like... iunno, security concerns online

To all people who asks me "Why didn't you save them?", and "Why are you using XP?"...

I did save them. On external harddrives. Along with a lot of other stuff I've been saving for decades. The problem is... I go on vacation for a few weeks, come back home, and find rats have invaded and destroyed my external harddrives. There goes decades of important stuff.:(

As for why I am using XP... The rats also got into, and destroyed, my Win 7 computer. It's in the repair shop. Where it will probably be for awhile. I really hope they are able to save the data on the harddrive. It's got lots of game mods that aren't available anymore. For example "Skygates" for "Skyrim" which places Stargates in Skyrim to use as shortcuts to the major Holds. "Wyrmstooth" for "Skyrim" which is a really great mod. "Quests & Legends" for "Dragon Age Origins" which I really like.

As for why I don't get a new computer... Do you think money grows on trees!? I am old, crippled, and in a care facility. I have no income. Where am I supposed to get money at?!

I hope that clears things up some.

If you are in the US, there are non-profits that can provide you with a free desktop. I volunteer at a few and help them build and repair machines for low income families and elders in care facilities.

They often come with Linux, though because providing a copy of Windows is illegal. You can install whatever you like once it's in your hands. Try https://www.freegeek.org/ and see if a chapter is near you. There is also https://rebootpc.org/ and Tech Remix which is a DYCD program for NYS residents.

If you run out of luck with them shoot me and msg and I can see what I can do. I often get computers for free. Lucero is a program in my area that allows shipping for free if it's a donated computer, laptop or phone.

Mostly galaxy I would assume. If they provided proper changelogs, ability to download old versions etc. Then it would be less of an issue:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/provide_a_full_and_complete_changelogged_download_system

You must be confusing this with another game. Riven has never run on DOSBox because Riven has never run on DOS.

Well I assume they didn't notice, because the incompatibility has crept in after they ceased support for XP, which means they wouldn't have tested on an XP machine.

It's a question I was actually thinking about when I replied to you. It's not an easy one to answer. It's difficult because we would like GoG to be here for a long time, and that technology will move on quite considerably in that time. We might move on from x86 PCs to some form of quantum computer that doesn't have backwards compatibility with x86. If that happens, how long should GoG be obliged to keep hosting and distributing x86 compliant installers? Surely not in perpetuity - the costs would rack up and GoG would have to increase prices for users to cover losses from this.

Personally, I think a fair compromise would have been to issue a statement saying "We are withdrawing support for Windows XP on April 8th 2014. We commit to continue hosting the installers that worked as at April 8th until 31st December 2014, after which time we cannot guarantee that installers you download from this site will work on XP. Should you wish to continue to use XP after this date, we recommended you download and back up your installers."

Regarding reliance on the website vs backups, I see that you joined in 2012. Those of us who were around prior to the fake shutdown in 2010 are less inclined to rely on the online library than multiple redundant offline backups! I'd also say that GoG is by no means the worst here - Steam has been known to replace games with newer versions with significantly increased system requirements.


Don't assume that people know your personal situation; your OP gave no context.

The vast majority of the responses have been very helpful, even with the contextual hindsight of the limiting factors that you are stating. As I'm sure the Linux users on this site will testify, there are versions of Linux that will work with the 15+ year old technology in an XP laptop.

Windows updates can make older games no longer work.

xp is not supported for years
why are you stuck with it?
pretty easy to change to win10 the best os atm , and I bet most of these work on it flawlessly
so how would they know which one is the last version compatible when they don't support -> don't test the games on xp?
just think about it

I wouldn't spend any dime on xp compatibility , glad neither GoG, it is just waste of resources at this point
agree even linux is better than winxp

Wasn't Riven originally a Windows game? It probably didn't use DOSBox before.

I think they switched to ScummVM because the "Windows-native" original version probably had serious issues running successfully in Windows 10. Not sure what you mean by increasing the image file size...

I guess GOG figures people usually buy older games from GOG in order to run them in modern PCs with modern Windows systems, rather than old Pentium machines running Windows XP or 98SE. So by supporting XP (even if it meant merely keeping around the "last known working XP versions"), they'd be serving only a very small subset of their customers.

So basically the same reason why their support for Linux users is so meager, only worse.
1. They figure the amount of such people who need access to the XP version of the game is so tiny. (Not sure if it is, but they probably believe so.)

2. They don't know which version still works in XP, as they haven't tested any of their games on XP since 2015 or so. And now it is too late to retroactively trying to figure out which was the last XP-friendly version, even if they themselves still had access to the 6-10 years old versions installers.

3. They feel offering several versions of installers may confuse many users, and some Windows 10 users accidentally download the old XP version and then contact the GOG support unnecessarily.

I mean, should they similarly keep separate versions of games which still worked on Windows 2000, Windows Vista etc.? I find it quite understandable they concentrate on retaining compatibility with the modern systems and OSes.

That is why some of us also mentioned Linux, as it is free. All it costs you is time, and maybe you have plenty of that, both to install Linux beside XP, and learn to use Linux (then again, "learning" mostly means you just google how to do stuff on Linux, like "how to install wine on linux", "how to install game in wine", "how to uninstall game in wine", "how to run game in wine" etc.).

It is not a perfect solution and yes it means going out of your comfort zone to learn how a different OS works, but most probably you would be able to play many of those games, that fail to work on XP, on Linux.

Then again, if your Windows 7 PC is in a repair shop and is coming back anyway, maybe you have it back before you have managed to install Linux. I first was under the impression that you will be stuck with XP for a rather long time, and are unable, or unwilling, to obtain a newer PC or Windows version in the near-ish future.

I have my doubts how well Windows 10 would run on an old PC currently running XP. How much RAM does that PC have anyway? 2GB? (I think 32bit XP didn't support more than 3GB RAM anyway...).

Plus, buying a Windows 10 license to an old Windows XP PC that might break down tomorrow... I dunno, doesn't sound like a good investment.

Any rolling updates to any software can break things, this is not unique to windows. The difference here is that to try to push galaxy, GOG have systematically gone through all the installers and added galaxy features and galaxy requirements (galaxy.dll which for some games you cannot remove). As they do not provide the option of downloading older versions, patches, or in most cases even bother telling you what has changed, this leads to many breakages and removed compatability.