Just got a new hard drive and to my horror all the games I have purchased i cannot play now. 2.0 will not work on my windows 7 instal. What am I supposed to do now?

Just don't use Galaxy?
Or upgrade to Windows 10?

Unless "Don't use GOG Galaxy" is the kind of sage advice you're after, you should stick to posting about GOG Galaxy issues in the GOG Galaxy forum.

The official requirements say Windows 8 or newer, but unofficially GOG Galaxy received at least one patch for Windows 7 support.

There may be a solution to your problem if you describe what it actually is (i.e. "I clicked this and then that happened" as opposed to "My game doesn't work").

On the website under your account name go to games. Pick one. Download its offline backup installer file(s).

"the Extended Security Updates (ESUs) reached their end of life on Jan. 10, 2023"
so... It`s officially unsafe to use Windows 7, can`t blame GOG for this, blame Microsoft :D (psst... Microsoft People... we want to buy more of your games here)

As already stated, even Microsoft isn't supporting Windows 7 anymore. When the manufacturer of the operating system decides that they're not going to support it any further, you're going to find that a lot of software developers are not going to want to support it either. You may want to consider upgrading to Windows 8.

Another option is to use the offline installers on the website at least until someone over in the Galaxy forums can figure out how to get Galaxy to work on Windows 7 if you do want to stick with that operating system: https://www.gog.com/en/account

buy them again

[EDIT]: better check here, it should definitely help you:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general_beta_gog_galaxy_2.0/how_to_keep_galaxy_v12_client_and_avoid_the_forced_v20_beta_update/page1

I understand why you prefer Windows 7 over Windows 10.

In case you really want to have GOG Galaxy on Win 7 there are 2 possible ways:

1. to just copy paste the GOG Galaxy files from your oiriginal Windows 7

2. to install the older build which would not check your current OS

I haven't tried it but that insallation instruction might help you (it's in English and Russian both), the download link is active at least:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general_beta_gog_galaxy_2.0/windows_7_i_gog_20/post4

Use Galaxy 1.2.67 and manually delete the updater file so that it cannot ever update.

That version is vastly better than 2.0 anyway.

The main reason to use 2.0 was to have all the game from all launcher in one place but they didn't even take care of integration so you are right, there is no point to use 2.0 now, it use more ressources than 1.2 for nothing that worth it, everybody should rollback to 1.2

When 7 WAS covered by security updates, i never used them. I didn't trust them. And lo-behold they start pushing the windows 8 upgrade using malware tactics of not letting you say you didn't want it and forcing you to download and upgrade to it.

Honestly i'd be quite happy to still use XP; It probably helps that the router has a firewall that won't let anything through at all thus attacks on my network are probably nil, unless the government has a back door they use.

No, i hated 8, don't want 10, and certainly don't want 11 or 12 they are planning on.

Only if you're paying...

You're back.
Welcome.

Might really help, if you describe your problem in detail. Normally Galaxy 2.0 works fine on Windows 7 (even if it isn't officially supported).

But installation fails, at least for me and some other users. There is a workaround, but I never tried it myself. What I did when GOG Galaxy refused to install itself under Win7 was just copy my GOG Galaxy folder. At least GOG haven't said anything about blocking outdated launcher in future like Steam.