To add on to this, here is a step by step list of what I did and it is working for me:

Uninstall Galaxy 2.0
Go to "C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy" and delete all remaining files
Download Galaxy 1.2.67.58 from the link above
Install Galaxy 1.2.67.58
As the installation finishes, DO NOT check "Run Galaxy"
Before running Galaxy again, go to "C:\ProgramData\GOG.com\Galaxy\redists" and rename Galaxyupdater.exe to something else like Galaxyupdater.old or just delete it completely
Then run Galaxy, go to your settings and change everything back to your liking and you should be all set

No more popups or forced upgrades

This worked perfectly so far. I really appreciate your help!

To everyone and this also applies to other clients like Steam, Origin and Uplay:

I also want to add that uninstalling and installing the older version will mess with the installation of your games (provided you didn't uninstall or delete them from ''Games'' folder). If you want to have them fully working in Control Panel > Programs and Features, import the games using GOG Galaxy first, then Right click > Cut them out of the ''Games'' folder from GOG Galaxy directory and paste them elsewhere away from the GOG directory (so they don't accidentally get uninstalled). While keeping GOG Galaxy running, uninstall the games from there and then go back to where you pasted your game installations, Right click and Click on ''Undo move'' so they will move back to their original location which is either:

C:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games
D:\Program Files (x86)\GOG Galaxy\Games

Finally, install them (don't import) so they will get recognized immediately and reconfigured. Any additional steps may be required such as some modifications could be potentially reset. I'm not sure, double check the directories of your games to be sure.

This way the games will be properly in Programs and Features if you ever want to uninstall from there. These steps are of course irrelevant if you don't care about the paths, registry, etc.

Last but never least, I also want to mention I have setup a wishlist for the GOG Galaxy Client. You can check it out here:

https://www.gog.com/wishlist/galaxy/switch_between_gog_galaxy_1x_and_2x_add_improvements_reset_archievements_button_and_more

Hey everyone, I found this in the community wishlist: Allow users to stay with Galaxy 1.2

Also, to prevent the update, here's what I did to disable update for good. Seems to have worked, and all is fine.

Galaxy 2.0 does not feel very intuitive. I mean, everything is there, but at least to me it feels like everything is just littered all over the place and at least until getting somewhat more familiar with the client, I found myself searching for the same functionalities time and again, even if I had used them before. And that some functionalities are there for some games, but not for others, like the configuration menus, does not help as well.

But what I found most annoying is that every time you click on a game, the client changes its colors. What were you thinking when implementing that? And the fact that everything now seems to have a quite low contrast and that those white-ish/grey-ish fonts sometimes downright vanish for me in combination with certain background colors does not help at all.

Apart from the menues and how they seem to be all over the place (which at least is something I can get used to), I REALLY want the option to have a fixed background color and to adjust contrast and in the best case scenario even the font size.

One of the things I liked about the first client was the clean and sleek look and that it did not use pseudo-fancy effects like shining tiles and whatnot AND, most important, that for once I had no problem reading menues and such. Steam is peeving me off for years now with adding useless, annoying 'features' and forcing crap like shiny tiles on me, while insisting that everyone has eagle vision and can deal just fine with tiny grey fonts one can not scale and that are even harder to read with the low contrast and the stupid decision to use a a low contrast grey background.

And NOW I get low contrast fonts, annoyingly changing background colors with most of them being INCREDIBLY ugly, screaming and annoying and that make the low contrast fonts downright vanish at least for some people with impaired vision.

I know that a lot of things are a matter of personal taste, but with 2.0 I feel MUCH less inclined to use the client. To me it now reaches the point where it feels like the Steam client to me - I use it, because I HAVE to, not because it feels convenient or gives me more oversight and control and while the things I want get not implemented or even get removed (like the clean, sleek look older versions had), it gets littered with more and more stuff I find annoying, like this stupid color-changing background.

Sorry if that sounds too harsh, I am aware that a lot of things are a matter of personal taste, but I am visually impaired and especially the low contrast fonts and this color thing actually are a real problem to me that has a massive impact on usability.


EDIT: And no, I don't want to jump through hoops and waste my time to somehow re-install an older version. I had enough of this kind of mess with Steam already and I am getting sick of it.

no shit. when did this crap become the norm? i have no problem with companies asking for beta testers from the masses when their product is close to release. it makes perfect sense. forcing us to beta is a lot of shit. then you get all the white knights riding in telling us it's some sort of privilege to help these multi million dollar companies not have to pay to get thier crap running before forcing it on us. frustrating as hell
i do not want to work for gog and i do not want to beta test. i most definately do not need yet another all in one platform. there are mroe than enough already out there.
i removed galaxy completely

To be honest, right now I am thinking of removing Galaxy 2.0 for good as well. Not just because of the menues being confusing or all over the place or because of that color nonsense or the low readability of the fonts, but simply because right now it just does not work.

More often than not games will not start, the info pages to my games are not shown or the client loads/integrates stuff forever. Hell, I can't even shut the client down properly, when I click 'Exit', then the icon in the info bar and the client vanish from sight, while the program itself keeps running and needs to get shut down via task manager. Interestingly enough, this will then lead to more trouble, because this is the moment the client decides to start the games I've tried to start before, which leads to my Windows showing all kinds of interesting behaviour. Which also can only be resolved with the task manager.

With Steam I can at least be sure that it works and will not lead to all kinds of crashes or even hard locks. As a customer, I am sick and tired of being a beta tester. They had a version that worked perfectly fine and decided to scrap that for something that is not just inconvenient, but apparently quite unstable as well.

EDIT: While looking at the Galaxy client, I've just realised that there is another thing I find immensely annoying and that I've initially hoped would not become a thing with this client, because Steam is peeving me off with crap like this already, namely that "Other people have played..." section on the overview site. What. The. Heck. Seriously, why?

RIght now Galaxy is telling me that 'other people' played Final Fantasy 7, Mount & Blade Bannerlord, Animal Crossing, Resident Evil 3 and Half Life: Alyx. And I care about that, because...? And the really fun thing is, at the same moment I can't see what games I have played last, because the damn client won't load that section.

Please, devs, I feel there is room for more! Why not showing us your favourite barbecue recipes of the front page? Or what about a section that shows what 'other people' have watched on Netflix or Amazon Prime recently? Honestly, can someone please explain to me why the hell I should be interested in what 'other people' have played recently and why you waste my time and sacrifice clarity and functionality in order to show this to me? While the damn client itself does not even work properly?

Lucky you. I can't. And in the past few days, multiple reports have been showing up of people losing access to Steam. Most, but not all, the comments I've seen about it have been (in many cases because they've forced to) people running the older client from before the new library was introduced. There have been a number of people with serious functionality issues with the new client, as well as a number being affected medically with the client triggering epilepsy and migraines in users who previously had no history of ANY computer software affecting them, or at worst no history of any kind of game launcher being a problem. With Steam locking most of the games into their client that means users affected by the problem were in many cases already being denied access to their entire Steam library. Adding in the old client seeming not to work any more for some people (although with some users on the new client reporting issues as well, that might not be the actual cause), and there's some serious reasons for concern about using Steam.

Much safer and easier to just stick to a reverted Galaxy 1.2 (and waiting forever for GOG to actually respond to support requests, since I've got one still waiting for an answer from MARCH)

It's a marketing tactic, plain and simple.