haydenaurion: I'm preparing to get a new PC that can run The Witcher 2, but i'm a bit squeamish about switching from Windows XP Pro 32-bit to Windows 7 64-bit as i've heard on the forums that some of the older GOG games may have trouble running or even starting on Win 7 64-bit.
Two things:
- 64bit Windows versions (be it XP, Vista or Win7) can't run 16-bit Windows applications. This means that installing or patching of many early 32bit Win9x games fail in 64bit Windows because the installer, or the patching program, is 16bit.
But, this does not concern GOG games because their installers are by default made 64bit friendly, I think. Also for many other games, you can find instructions how to install the game manually, or user made replacement installers.
- For other compatibility issues with Win9x games (outside GOG at least), my experience is that usually those games that have problems in Win7 64bit, have similar problems also in WinXP 32bit. These include all kinds of video codec problems, but other problems too. So for these the only option really is to play the on real Win9x machine, go figure.
I agree with others that it doesn't make much sense to install XP on a new PC, at least as a primary OS. Apart from those 16-bit installers, game compatibility of Win7 64bit seems pretty much the same to WinXP 32bit.