Thanks to your stup*d " Old games preservation program ", I got a Morrowind update which scr**d all of my saves. After trying to load a saved game, I got a warning that a new version had been installed, and my saved games might have errors. After I uninstalled the game, I got a message telling me if I wanted to delete my saved games, I clicked " yes ". THank God, I hadn 't advanced much into the game.

You can turn off auto updates in Galaxy. Might be an idea to prevent this happening again as GOG are updating a lot of games right now.

EDIT: I don't know where this setting is though as I don't use Galaxy, I just rely on my offline installers.

You should be able to roll it back too, I think.

Or at least, I just went in and stopped the auto update.

So in Galaxy, I went to Morrowind, then clicked the two parallel slidey bar icon. From there, I clicked Manage Installation and Configure.

Then I unticked Auto Updates. Below it, there were two versions listed--the one I was at (as it had not yet updated) and the new GOG patch.

Does anyone know what this "patch" does, and if the download version is affected, too? It has definitely nothing to do with Morrowind as a game (or has the version number changed)? Galaxy-only?

At any rate, I'd calm down. If the "patch" doesn't work, it's likely to be fixed soon. And I wouldn't delete any savegames or even uninstall - definitely not as a reaction to a warning.that something "might" be wrong. That the player is informed of new versions is not a bad thing per se - not all updates are savegame-compatible.

You should disable the updates in galaxy for all games from the settings. In you case for Morrowind I also don't understand why there is an update. There are no changes made to the game or at least non are mentioned on its page so they made this update and why there is a new offline installer I don't know. I mentioned it a few times in the original thread about the program but I got no answer what in the was updated...

I had a little vent about this on the Dragon Age: Origins forum and received the usual defensiveness. It's not the updates themselves, it's the lack of clarity in these sweeping tweaks to a hundred+ old games, many of which already rely on modding to smooth the transition to modern hardware. The missing changelog details, the vague descriptions. The response I got for what 'Verification' and 'Validation' meant was 'no changes'; the answer for why that presents as a download in Galaxy was dead air.

If by chance you used the Morrowind Code Patch at all then perhaps some tweak was made to the main game EXE; MCP modifications would've been undone by such an update—try rerunning the code patch to make sure it's still active before you dive too far in. MCP also creates a backup of the original Morrowind.exe renamed Morrowind.Original.exe which you could use to restore the old one if you needed that. If you were just running pure vanilla Morrowind then ignore this, I'm really sorry to hear about your saves.

Much ado about nothing? The list of updated games of my GOG account doesn't show Morrowind, Steam doesn't mention an update, nor is it mentioned on Morrowind's Steam forum. I'd say this patch must have been a Galaxy-only one (I don't use Galaxy). And no other Morrowind player reported or confirmed a problem with a recent patch on the GOG forum.

The original post says simply that trying to load a savegame produced a warning, and when uninstalling Morrowind, the user was asked if he wanted to delete the Morrowind savegames.
Well, the latter is standard for every GOG uninstallation of games, and the former may have many reasons. I get such a warning, for example, when I try to laod a savegame which was created with a mod active which isn't active anymore.

I know I'm guessing - but is there evidence that I'm wrong?

The game card in the website library shows a new version number "1.6.0.1820 GOG 0.1", so it's not just Galaxy. Something's definitely changed although there's no patch so it can't be major.

So, I did the test and installed the update, it messed up my Morrowind.ini file.
I reverted to a backup.
I also had to run MGE EX again to fix the resolution of the game. Everything else seems fine.

I had noticed the version number. The latest official version is 1.6.1820. "GOG 0.1" hints at something GOG-internal, while I have no idea what the insertion of "0" (1.6."0".1820) could mean.
But do you know when this new version was released? As far as I'm concerned, it could have been there for quite some time (I haven't downloaded Morrowind for a number of years, but I do check the list of updated games every now and then, and can't remember having seen it in this list). And, to be honest, I have no intention to install the file just to be able to check dates.

That ini and resolution were reverted back to default is what I would have expected. The download file is the full game, and not a patch, so it would simply overwrite everything, including the ini and the registry content (resolution) of Morrowind. Instead of running MGE XE again, you could also have edited the registry (not advised for people who are not familiar with editing the registry), or used the Morrowind Code Patch (MCP).

But I can't say what else a new Morrowind installation would mean for modded Morrowind (depends on the mods, I suppose). It may well have caused the warnings mentioned in the original post - because mod content was overwritten by the new installation. I'd strongly recommend to at least check, or better re-install all mods after a full installation, and re-run utilities like MGE XE and MCP.

I don't use Galaxy, but I recommend to all Galaxy users to disable automatic updating for Morrowind. If an update is offered, check for information what it does (don't expect Morrowind itself to change).
If a player decides to update the game (Galaxy or direct download version), be prepared to re-install and re-activate ALL mods, or accept and resolve issues (for example, savegame warnings or even crashes when loading a savegame - crashes when starting a new game would be highly unlikely for the updated, but then unchanged game).
It's impossible to be more specific. Just work on the assumption that every file of the original Morrowind installation, which was verwritten by a mod, will be reverted back to the original file. When you start the updated Morrowind game, it's more or less like starting the original unmodded file.

Thank you for being our canary in the coal mine, it was good of you to take the bullet for others—I now know I won't touch this update with a barge pole.

GOG Galaxy states it was 13 days ago, in the 'Configure' dialogue. I was alerted to it on November 13. I think this thread and the widespread campaign of updates GOG is currently implementing makes it pretty clear this is a recent development. Now what would be nice, is if GOG could inform us on what their bespoke tweaks and changes have actually done, precisely.

It remains a mystery: Galaxy says 13 days ago, direct download doesn't show Morrowind in my list of updated games. This would make me think it's a Galaxy-only update. On the other hand, it looks like game files (probably modded ones) must have changed - which would affect the direct download version, too. Then there is the issue of the version number.
And finally - why doesn't GOG communicate (I'm pretty sure they have noticed this thread)?

Regarding the "widespread campaign of updates": Any indication if this is Galaxy-only, or does it affect direct download, too (I hadn't noticed such a campaign in the direct download realm - which isn't saying that it doesn't exist)?

I just got it.
I accidentally clicked to update :D
However, I checkes exe and it was modified in 2023, so update did not messed with it probably.
The only implication was that Morrowind.ini was changed, so in the end it did not knew what mods were enabled.
When I enabled mods again, save was correctly loaded.

So eventually I could say, that scope of the update was cosmetic.

BUT!!!
BUT!!!
Stiffkittin correctly noticed, that bringing update to "Good Old Games" which already could be modified for make it better on modern systems is risky and I would like to get more transparency on what is the purpose of this update and possibly scope/implications.

I did controlled update of Rollercoaster Tycoon and Carmageddon and none of key files were changed.
Only documentation, zmbv.dll, glide2x.dll.
So eventually it seems quite harmless.