TrueDosGamer: I wouldn't worry about MS supporting the OS or what that has to do with GOG supporting it. It should at least be the last 32-bit operating system they should support and 64-bit Vista is compatible or should be compatible with Windows 7 and later since the code is built on top of Vista. Microsoft calling it 7, 8, 10 is just there way of trying to trick the consumer into thinking they changed the code drastically which is false. Most of the core is the same as Vista. How else are they going to profit except to claim a big digit number change to trick people like you into thinking Windows 12.0 is a big difference from Windows 7? As for user interface I think they've taken a step back ever since Vista. Adding eye candy doesn't make a user interface better.
BKGaming: I know the code base is largely the same since Vista. My point is if the company that made it doesn't support it, then asking another company to do so as far as running products on it is illogical. Even with the same code base, there is enough difference where an issue one might have is not being experienced on another.
TrueDosGamer: I took a look at the OS usage statistics. It appears XP did drop but I don't know how accurate that is since about 1 year ago it was around 35% or on about 1/3 of all computers worldwide. Perhaps Windows 10's free upgrade from Windows 7 is encouraging people to try their OS for free following Apple's footsteps. But not to say that everything new is bad but you will be certain a ton of new bugs will crop up in Windows 10 that Window 7 doesn't have and most people probably shifting to Windows 10 aren't going to be playing old games or even care about old games but the latest and greatest. So if GOG has switched their purpose then they should rename themselves to GNG.
BKGaming: GOG switched their purpose back in 2012 (I believe). They don't stand for Good Old Games anymore and some people seem to forget that. I would also say 35% is way to high for XP, that has been is a fast decline for a while, most reports I've seen has it at like 10%. Even GOG has stated their user-base on these OS's are small, and they would easily have the statistics for what OS's are accessing the site.
TrueDosGamer: Also I don't believe most people who are playing Good Old Games are really using really modern top of the line computers. Most computers that ran XP are more than powerful enough to run any DOS game via DOSBOX. As for the interface Steam has no problem supporting XP so I doubt it makes sense to drop complete support for XP based on the assumption Microsoft dropped support first. They tried to kill XP a long time ago way before 2014 so don't think it is the end of the line for XP yet. I haven't ever used Microsoft support in my entire life and most Service Packs and patches are still downloadable forever on their website so I'm not sure what kind of support you are complaining about except online or phone technical support. But the fact that if it is true that less people are using XP now then that means that operating system will be less likely targeted by hackers and someone using Windows 7 and higher are going to be the prime targets as a result.
BKGaming: Most gamers run at least Windows 7 if we go by Steam hardware results, and as I said GOG knows what systems are accessing the site. Your are also wrong about XP and support. It is a prime target for hackers since the patches for newer security loopholes are not sent to XP anymore. This is the support I am referring too. Any new hacks or techniques to circumvent XP's security will not be fixed by MS, the old service packs might be available but only up to where MS stopped support. Any hacker will tell your this or any security information class.
TrueDosGamer: I really don't know what these "issues" you claim GOG had with older OSs but most of the time that is an excuse used by companies because of laziness or lack of good programmers. And yes most of the time they point the finger at the OS maker that dropped support first as an excuse.
BKGaming: Well speaking on behalf of programmers everywhere, that is not always true. Even though I will admit some are lazy. Like any field you have your good and your bad. Doesn't dismiss as what GOG said as untrue.
Perhaps you can link the source of where you are referring to regarding the "issues" GOG galaxy had with older OSes.
Speaking on behalf of programmers I am also one and I started in Basic back in the 80s so I understand the difference between good and bad code. And certainly Windows XP's dominance for nearly 15 years there is enough knowledge out there to write for it.
People used to be very efficient with code. We worked on Assembly and found ways to make compact code do a lot.
Today you have programs that span Gigabytes when back then even Kilobytes was sufficient.
Memory was a scarcity then and if you could make your code as efficient as possible it paid off.
I can remember a time when Assembly games compared to C+ games showed a difference in noticeable speed.
If you compared XP vs Windows 7 you can see that a full installation on XP is around 1GB or less. In comparison Windows 7 is around 24GB or so.
So given the amount of space I saved using XP I could in fact install several more copies of XP onto different partitions if I chose to have MultiBoot options and a purpose for each installation.
As far as modern hardware you can run XP on Skylake, Kabylake, and Cannonlake CPUs on it when it arrives.
Why would someone want to run XP other than it being a better user interface?
The speed. When you run an older OS on faster and faster CPUs everything is fluid and fast and this means higher frame rates as well since less of the CPU load is geared toward the OS.
I also want to add why are you so concerned what other people are using for their OS?
Each OS has their own vulnerabilities and if the user isn't making wise decisions they can infect their computer quite easily.
For one stop using Internet Explorer and use Firefox which should prevent bad websites from running malicious code.
Whenever I used IE I found this happened a number of times when you go to the wrong site unknowingly.
Never open and run file attachments with .exe or .com file extensions and some even embed the executable in a zip file. Most of these infections come from user compliance running the software needed for a hacker to access your system.
Using a 3rd party Virus and malware scanner when Microsoft no longer offers support.
Using a 3rd party incoming / outgoing connection interceptor that will deny running a program unless you authorize it.
Image your entire OS while it is not infected yet. This will save you a ton of grief when you restore it in minutes rather than hours reinstalling everything from scratch.
As for your Steam statistics the reason why Windows 7 64-bit would be at the top is one reason. DirectX 11.0 was added so certain games required this to take advantage of newer graphics. Like I said before DirectX 11.0 is also available on Vista through a platform update. Had a DirectX 11.0 patch been available for XP I'm sure people would still be using XP as a result. Microsoft needed an incentive to get people to upgrade their OS and they targeted gamers.
The other reason as I mentioned was IE updates no longer were supported after a certain version which required an Windows OS upgrade. If Microsoft kept releasing new versions of IE for XP there would also be no reason for people to upgrade. This is why 3rd party browsers like Firefox, Seamonkey, and Opera are keeping XP alive longer than Microsoft originally wanted even though they tried every possible way to kill it and recently offering Windows 10 free.
And another possible reason why Steam still has XP support other than it being the most widely supported 32-bit operating system for games is some multiplayer games probably are only supported under XP and as a result killing off XP support would kill of that game's online presence potentially pissing off their users. It's not always about percentages but how many actual users are using XP.
What operating system are you using and are you using any additional software for malware or virus scanning or just using the basic Windows installation and security patches?
