No, C&C 3 didn't had cloud save when it was released, heck it didn't had online activation, wasn't a Steam game and used a basic offline CD-Check.

Then change a single DLL and have the game work on XP; but don't expect Gog to support or care about an OS they announced no longer supporting years ago.

Saying that nothing interesting happens on OS-level is a gross misconception. Probably explained by the fact that 99% of the users never directly interact with the kernel(aka "the OS").
But guess who makes neat stuff like containers possible ? The system software just uses the virtualisation support that was implemented at OS-level. And maybe the the average user won't care about containers. But stuff like flatpak will likely bring a "cool new thing" for him, and that uses the same features under the hood.

Same way things like GPU-accelerated video decoding are only possible because it is implemented at OS-level + providing a nice interface to make it usable for user application. Efficient and fluid video playback on youtube is not a feature brought to you by your browser :p

Or just think of the whole area of energy management / energy efficiency. Dynamically scaling CPU/GPU frequency, switching off unused hardware parts, etc.All that stuff started pouring into OS design/programming like maybe 10-15(?) years ago and brought a fundamental change compared to how things were done back in the early days.
Without this work happening in the OS, mobile computing as we are used to it today would have been impossible.

If people talk only about visually changes that is often simply due to ignorance or lack of interest.
I mean, let's be honest, for the majority of users the inner workings of a computer is like magic.
All that matters is the stuff that you see on the screen.

Microsoft truly took Apple and Google on the bed. Microsoft's Continuum is already a thing and is positioned to become more powerful every year. Right now very few devices supports it, but with cloud services (Office 365, etc) and virtualized desktop environments (VDI, RDS, etc) on the rise we stand on the eve of a major shift away from regular laptops for most business users, and over to phones (hybrid devices) that is capable of serving the same purpose when docked into a station on a desk. The future business employee will always carry their workstation, files and customized applications with them wherever they carry their work phone.

Meanwhile Apple have made no clear statement on the matter and seems to go from not caring about macOS at all to caring a bit about it. Similarly, Google haven't made any clear statements regarding Andromeda, or at least not clear enough to kill the ongoing rumors regarding it being intended to merge Chrome OS and Android into one ecosystem.

It'll probably be at least half a decade (or even more) before we see Windows Continuum to start gain traction amongst personal consumers but at that point it will most likely have a heavy push behind it from the business sector. After all, IT departments around the world loves Continuum since it's still Windows at its core which will allow them to utilize well-established features and functionality and decades of knowledge and experience with Microsoft's ecosystem.

Do you have a list of games affected by galaxy.dll problem?

Right now it only seems to be Fallout: New Vegas, but any new title on GOG that comes with Galaxy integration will most likely be effected. It's also possible that if GOG starts patching old games with the new features that they as well will be affected, though in that case you can simply downgrade or disable auto-updates for those titles and you'll be able to play them on XP still.

So really, only completely new titles are "seriously" affected.

I doubt it's even that. It's not to do with Galaxy integration, tonnes of games have that and there are no reports of broken compatibility, it's the fact the Galaxy integration replaces Steamworks.

To my knowledge F: NV is the first Steamworks only game we've had here. It relied on that steam.dll to run, and in the Gog version it has been replaced with a galaxy.dll.

For whatever reason the steam.dll still works on XP (and the game still runs sans Steam with it in place) while the Galaxy one doesn't (as Galaxy doesn't support XP anyway).

So I'd imagine the only games effected are those that previously were Steam only and have Steam features. Any old games released before the advent of Steam should be fine, and any newer games may or may not work depending on how reliant on Galaxy functions they are (but any brand new game isn't going to be guaranteed to work on XP anyway).

If I had access to the galaxy.dl file I could try to prepare a patch so that it works under XP.

I am now convinced a lot of the hardcore, diehard XP only users see themselves as some sort of brave, heroic rebels, fighting aganst the Tyranny of THE MAN. They have seen "The Matrix" once to often. and think they are Neo.

I can see the purpose of remaining traditional about the essentials and always keeping in mind a backup plan to get through a case of no electricity for a period of time. Although your right about stuff with software and computers, they're not essential to living, so why be so rooted and defiant to changes in it? GOG is about distributing old games in installers that run on current and relatively current machines, why should they cater to an old OS? If people are so stubborn about what GOG is doing so much, why not just torrent a copy of said game to run natively on an OS?

Some people just do not want to spend money on a new computer while the old one is still working fine. What is bad about that?

Nothing. But if your old rig can't run one of the newer OSes, it's also not realistic to expect to be catered to when software has moved on from an OS that was retired and is no longer supported.

This is some seriously stupid stupidity, because there are no "XP only users" on this website.

Plenty of rustled jimmies, tho. lol

But, if a game run on XP in the past, it should run on XP nowadays as well.

Every single one of them IS running a newer OS.
.
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Cue for you to go off about how it isn't the "right" one, I suppose. o.O

Ok, I read several posts on gog forums and it seems to me that if I had access to Galaxy.dll and GalaxyWrp.dll files I should be able to prepare a patch so that they are compatibile wit XP. Now, my question is: Is Fallout 3 the only game which contains these files or there are also others?