Very relevant: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/why_does_gog_have_simcity_2000_yet_no_simcity_2000_network_edition

I do not know how necessary this thread is, and it may upset some people. However, I've noticed many reviews complaining about how this is the DOS version of the game and not the Windows 95 ("Gold"/Network Edition) one, and I figured I'd give my own take on that. (This is what I've gathered from my time on the GOG forums.)

GOG is focused on games that just /work/. As far as I know they do their best to test games on about 35-40 different machines and will not release each one until it runs well on every single one.

Windows versions of games were ?hardcoded? to run specifically with 16-bit processors, and therefore are generally unstable on machines that have 32 and 64-bit processors, certainly the norm today. There are workarounds for the Windows version mentioned on this forum, but they appear to be quite complex; plus, what might work for one person might not work for another.

On the other hand, thanks to the DOSBox team (who helped to develop a stable product that acts as a fully-capable DOS environment), DOS versions can be played by the majority of people without having to fiddle around too much or deal with complex workarounds. It's certainly not a perfect solution (sometimes people have to tweak the sound and graphic settings in a configuration file), but when put up against the crashes of a Win95 version, hopefully one can understand why GOG did what they did.

Until we can get something like a "WINBox" that emulates old Windows environments (I guess Wine For Windows is working on something like that), DOSBox is the next best alternative. I'm certainly not saying you can't steer people away from GOG's version (if you can find a better version legally, like on eBay), but I hope this post helps people to understand GOG's reasoning in the matter - they're trying to make games run as easy as possible for people.

Oh, and just FYI: as far as I know GOG never gets the source code for games, so they can't change things internally. Most games work via other methods.

(By the way, does anybody have any eBay or Amazon links to Windows 95 copies of Simcity 2000? Feel free to post them here.)

I'm not sure that DOS version is really missing anything, though I remember Windows version interface looking a little nicer. I played it as recently as XP, but not have not bothered trying to install it on my 7 laptop. I pray that I never purchase a computer with Windows 8 on it. I managed to avoid Vista and shall avoid this plague also.

The Windows version supports higher resolutions and has the African Swallow speed option (insanely fast, more for just advancing a city's evolution). Technically it can also support more than 256 colours, but that isn't always successful. However, it is not easy to get it working on modern Windows OSes.

I stopped caring about resolution when I started playing older games.

The only problem that I have with the DosBox version: It gets really, really slow when you start a scenario (like Barcelona).

Questions:

1. Is the performance better with the Win 95 version?
2. I know that you can play the Win 95 version on XP computers (32-Bit), but not on Vista, 7 oder 8. Is this true?
3. Because there is no widescreen on SC2K on DosBox, I wanted to know if there is a chance to play the Win 95 version in widescreen?

1. If you can get it running, then the performance should be better with the Win 95 version. Simply because you wouldn't be running it through a DOS emulator. If your DOSBox installation of SimCity 2000 is having slowdown issues then you could try tweaking the .conf file, maybe trying different graphics modes, or changing the cycles. Worst case scenario, up the frameskip slightly, though that isn't really desired.

2. You can run the Win 95 version of SimCity 2000 on modern OSes, but it takes some effort to get it working right. I put details in this thread. http://www.gog.com/forum/simcity/windows_95_version

3. The Win 95 version runs in a window if I remember correctly. It might be that the window is resizable but it has been a long time and I honestly can't remember.

Thx a lot for your post, very helpful! :)

That's funny because I can get the CD Windows 3.11/95 version of SimCity 2000 Special Edition to run just fine in Windows 7 64-bit. The DOS version needs Dosbox to run, the Win 3.11/95 one doesn't need anything special. Just maybe a speed limit if you can't handle how fast it goes on Cheetah.

You're probably right, it probably works fine, at most needing to click "compatability mode". I wish they would offer both versions, but they are probably worried about the mass of idiots who will come back not having clicked compatibility mode after downloading the "not-sure-to-work" windows version..

SimCity 2000 does have known issues on Win7:

Save/load dialog boxes cause crashes which can be fixed with the sc2k_w7_patch.exe.

If you play it in a screen mode with more than 256 colours then some of the animations don't show up (or show up incorrectly) but it is stil playable.

I'm not going to say that this affects every single Win7 instance, but it happens enough for there to be plenty easy to find forum posts about these two issues.

GOG focuses on games that work right out of the box, which is what DOSBox provides - Install and Play. Your experience may not be everyone else's experience, unfortunately. Something like that... :P

DosBox has never worked "out of the box" for me I've always had to tweak it to get GoG games that use it to run properly. There have only been 2 games using DosBox that worked without tweaks. Also SHOGO MAD is a Windows game. Runs ok on some 64-bit OS's but others have problems with it. And GoG sells it here.

To summerize: the argument of "GoG didn't release 'X' version because of compatibility problems" is a complete wash.

So why didn't they release the Windows 95 version of Simcity 2000?

Well you just have bad luck. I have good karma i this area so that shit doesn't happen to me. Didn't your mother ever teach you about computer karma? Yeah, mine neither.

I don't know. That's a question for the GoG Team themselves as I am just a regular user and don't have any insight on why the GoG team does anything. If a GoG person comes in here and states the same thing you did in the OP then I'll eat my words, preferably with fava beans and a nice kianti. :)
LOL I'm a computer technician. It's always down to luck-of-the-draw. But at least when something does go tits-up I can fix it.