Lol the lengths ppl'll go for a bit of forum action

Not really. As others have said it doesnt matter much in this case, but...
I can quote this post of yours in my reply (that was marked as solved), and at least then your thanks are amplified.

...and done! :)

I'd not use windows 10. Not only for privacy reasons, but resources to use it. Vista wanted 4Gb just to work with the Nero interface they shoved on it. Windows 7 isn't as bad turning all extra features off. Then there's the matter of mandatory updates along with updates that break compatibility.

Though the games listed are fairly low on the requirements, i doubt you'd have any issues running them with those hardware specs (Other than Windows 10)

Anyways. Most of the installers for older games will have patches in the executables to make them more compatible, or really old games will be using DosBox as a compatibility layer, which should be preconfigured to just run. Games that used specific hardware or API (3D Voodoo card for example) may have a dll replacing the 3dfx to instead call the DirectX equivelent.

As for getting started with the games, i'll assume not at a hardware level to run, but more at a starting level. Depends on the game. Many games divided up the story into the manual for you to read, this is more a limitation of hardware. If the manual doesn't gleam much for information then it may end up having to do it literally trial and error. Though the worst cases you'd see are the D&D Eye of the Beholder 80's games from the archives, where it really is not helpful at all.

Proper Rouge-likes (ToME, ADOM, Rouge, etc) tend to be more on limiting exposure and bottlenecking opponents with your skills and equipment on hand, though that depends on familiarity with the classes/abilities.

Action/FPS games (Painkiller, Quake, Quake Tournament, etc) Treat like doom, go everywhere shoot everything.

Can't say i'm too familiar with the other titles. Sea dogs, HoMM, Star Trek, never interested me.

Worst case you can look up an watch a walk-through on youtube, there's bound to be someone that played it, they will show you how they play an in effect show you how you're suppose to play.

Thank youfor all the info. I found a couple of old GOG games I tried wouldn't run on XP, and I had to go straight to the game's own .exe to get them to run. Windows 7 is tricky because of its obsalescence. I still have a genuine installation DVD, but I doubt that Microsoft will activate a new W7 installation because they stopped support for it in Jan 2020. Also, I don't know whether it will install now, or whether it can be done offline (but with no activation).

Note, I successfully installed and activated W10 on a oldish W7 laptop using a valid product key during November 2020. Fortunately, perhaps, I removed and kept the original W7 HDD and installed W10 on a clean HDD. Problem with laptops is one can't upgrade the graphics.

I use an offline PC for gaming and other purposes; this makes for a more relaxing and undisturbed computing experience with full security and privacy. I have several PC's as I collect people's throwouts and get them going where possible.