Most games here work just fine for me on Windows 7, and those that didn't were fine after a small fix that I was able to find easily thanks to support forums.

If you're getting Windows 7 get the 64-bit version.

It will be depended on what OS I go with. I am trying to find one that will be the least hassle to deal with playing my games. The system will be a GOG game system.

If DosBox, doesn't matter. If a late 90s or early 2000s game, try XP if possible.

Thanks for all of the advice. After much debating over which one to go with, I decided to go wtih Windows 8 64-bit and had very little problem with running my games.

There is absolutely no reason to use Windows XP in 2012 on a personal computer.

I'm still on windows ME

Is it only (mostly) just for running GOG games (and possibly older Windows retail games), kind of separate retro-gaming PC? As many have said, 32bit Windows XP has the very best compatibility with most GOG games.

BUT, if you are going to use that PC for normal PC use too, internet and such, XP starts to be rather insecure at this point compared to e.g. Win7/64bit. I say this just checking out systems of my friends/relatives who are casual users and know next to nothing about computers: their XP machines have quite often malware, while their Win7/64bit PCs remain mostly clean (in fact I don't even remember if I've detected malware on any of their Win7/64bit machines).

Win7/64bit in itself causes some extra quirks for many GOG games, but on the whole they can be run on it, one way or another. May require some extra steps, or some things may be a bit problematic, but not real game breaking issues I think.

Also, to me it seems that GOG games have much more often issues due to new hardware and/or their drivers, not necessarily due to Win7 itself (compared to XP). Like some games not liking quad core CPUs, or having issues because NVidia or AMD has dropped some legacy feature from their newer graphics drivers, or some game having an issue with high CPU speeds (at least Interstate'76) etc.

A couple of extra quirks that using Win7/64bit in itself may cause with GOG games, off the top of my head:

- Remembering to install GOG games outside the default Program Files (x86) directory, and/or running the game as an administrator (I install them under e.g. C:/Games/). You don't have to care about any of this in XP.

- Gorky 17 seems to have more issues on Win7 than on XP. Sometimes you may have to temporarily switch off 3D acceleration (even in XP) to go through some part of the game (for me there was one later battle where I had to do this, only once. After that I could switch on 3D acceleration again. But I've read some others can't run the game with 3D acceleration at all, but have to run it with software rendering all the time.).

But, switching off 3D acceleration can cause very bad audio stuttering inside the game, but in XP this can be fixed by going to Control Panel and disabling audio HW acceleration. In Win7, I don't think this is possible. Hence, if you have to run Gorky 17 without 3D acceleration in Win7, you may have quite scratchy audio which may make playing the game a PITA.

- In their eternal wisdom, Microsoft has made it harder to modify anything related to (General) MIDI settings in both Vista and Win7, compared to XP. For example, if you change the music to better sounding General MIDI in many GOG games, let's say Little Big Adventure, you may find the General MIDI music far too loud compared to the rest of the audio.

In WinXP you can change the MIDI volume separately. In Win7 (and probably Vista), this is not possible for some reason.

However, if you install some external MIDI software like BASSMIDI into Win7, it should allow you to change the MIDI volume. However, for some reason even that doesn't seem to always work, e.g. on my one Win7 machine it does change the MIDI volume (also for LBA), while in another Win7 PC it doesn't seem to have any effect at all. I don't know if this because in the PC where it works I'm using also a third party General MIDI soundfont ("Chorium Rev A"), while on the PC where the volume setting doesn't work, I'm trying to use the default "Microsoft GS wavetable synth" for General MIDI.

Also, setting up e.g. the Munt driver/utility (a Roland MT-32 MIDI emulator) that many older games, including GOG games, benefit from, is easier and more straightforward in WinXP than in Win7. But it is still possible also in Win7.


I'm sure there were more issues, but those for the start of those I've encountered. As said, there may be workarounds for many of them, and I don't consider any of them game-breaking issues.

In another year or so MS will be pulling the last bit of support. There will be no more security patches after that happens.

XP is also buggy and far less stable than 7 is and ultimately, buying a copy now makes no sense.

Who wants to buy a copy - I just want to continue using the one I have that came with my laptop and is working just fine. I could care less about MS Support. Why buy an upgraded OS for laptop from 2004 or 5

If you're using hardware from the era where Windows XP peaked, that's all good. But if you're on a PC with 2012 hardware, there's no reason. That's what I meant in the initial post. Stirring up the hornet's nest!

I would agree - If I were buying a new PC that would be fine. I bought Vista 64 for my current PC and will continue to use it till I buy a new machine. I misunderstood your position.

The OP is talking about building a new system. And in that case it's pretty much only going to be OK to play games on it with XP if the OP never connects it to the internet. Otherwise there's no telling what sort of unpatched vulnerabilities there might be.

I would agree to that - I mainly use the old laptop offline for games I have original CD's that seem to work best on XP. Or if I am traveling ;-)