Do GOG Games Work On WinXP?

Judge Dredd

Judge Dredd

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Long story short, I'm working on building the ultimate Windows XP retro gaming PC.

GOG used to be handy for winXP, since you could put all the installers on a flash drive and install the games without having to mess around with patches, noCD cracks or the like. However, GOG doesn't list XP as a supported OS on many of their games any more, even era appropriate games like Star Trek: Elite Force, FEAR, or Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.

Given the Christmas sale I can pick up dozens of games for less than £1 each. I assume they work, but I don't want to spend the money only to learn they changed the installer or something like that. I know that goggames and myabandonware exist, but those are a last resort.
 
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Not sure why XP era games wouldn’t work on XP, especially coming from GOG. Their comment sections are generally helpful, and you are definitely not the first person to do this.

On the games you’re most interested in, I’d read further to see if there are any recent updates that may cause compatibility issues. In cases like FEAR, which is an incredibly popular game (or was), they likely removed the XP listing from the list of supported versions of Windows because they do not want to be called upon for customer support if folks can’t get it to run.

Here’s a thread that kind of corroborates this:

GOG's F.E.A.R. System Requirments.. Typo or what?, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com

Download the best games on Windows & Mac. A vast selection of titles, DRM-free, with free goodies, and lots of pure customer love.
www.gog.com www.gog.com
 
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Looney Troons said:
Not sure why XP era games wouldn’t work on XP, especially coming from GOG.
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That was my thought as well. They've dropped XP from the system requirements, but only from some games. More obscure games like Redline.
www.gog.com

Redline

It's 2066 and the world is a different place. While the privileged insiders live in ferti
www.gog.com www.gog.com
or Firestarter
www.gog.com

FireStarter

Where does reality begin? In the year 2010, a malicious virus has infected a virtual rea
www.gog.com www.gog.com
Still list XP in the system requirements, but not under the "game details" tab.

My assumption is they're just not thorough in removing all references to XP, only doing so on their big sellers.

Looney Troons said:
Their comment sections are generally helpful, and you are definitely not the first person to do this.
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I disagree. Most comments I can find are either people who don't know but don't see a reason why they wouldn't (ie. the same boat as you and me), or people saying that OP should just use Win10.

That's also a problem when researching my XP build. So many comments tell people to use a virtual machine, or get angry at people for not using period appropriate hardware.
 
GOG is just DRM free games right? If the games were made for XP they should still work.
 
awoo said:
GOG is just DRM free games right? If the games were made for XP they should still work.
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Some GOG versions of games come pre-patched, sometimes with custom patches, to get them to run on current versions of Windows. These patches sometimes prevent the game from working properly on WinXP. As far as I know there aren't any exhaustive sources on which GOG games will or will not run on WinXP.
 
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I do have almost all the games I care about on CD/DVD somewhere, but that means installing them from disc, finding patches, or maybe a noCD crack. That might involve a lot of computer hopping since I don't plan on connecting my XP build to the internet.

There are games I know will be a pain. The GOTY version of Oblivion I have doesn't have all the DLC. I remember having to find Fighters Stronghold and burn that to DVD back in the day. I'm asking about GoG mainly for convenience. If GoG games still work on winXP, it'll be trivial to drag the exes onto USB, install them, and play them with little fuss. While I won't pay full price for it, this version of Oblivion seems to have everything.
www.gog.com

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion - Game of the Year Edition Deluxe

When you buy this game, The Elder Scrolls: Arena and The Elder Scrolls Chapter II: Dagger
www.gog.com www.gog.com
 
The games themselves might. I've played the GOG releases of System Shock 1-2, Morrowind GOTY, Jagged Alliance 2, and Gothic 1-2 on an XP machine. Oblivion should work as well, I think.
GOG Galaxy definitely won't work.
 
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If you are really in a pinch you could download the gog installers off the pirate site and try them first before buying. Depending on how many you are looking to get that could take a while though. Also if you are still in the process of building the XP machine guess you need to do the testing in a VM? I honestly don't know if that would introduce any issues Vs real hardware.

https://gog-games.com/

Anyway, let us know how you get on. I have been considering doing something similar just with a laptop from that era and keeping an eye out for decent XP laptops at my local car boot sale.
 
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Hey, I can answer this!

There is 0 guarantee. Some old games that didn't need any work to run will install fine, others won't. The reason is simple: the fixes to make these old games work are often coded in .net 4.5, which is not XP compatible. You'll get a "not valid x86 application" error. For example, three star wars games:

Battlefront: does not install. At all.

Empire at war: installs, but runs like dogshit with huge lag spikes. Disk version has no issues.

KoToR: installs and runs fine

All this is on a machine with an ivy bridge i7 and a gtx 285.

Your best bet for compatibility is to torrent the disk based version.
 
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I actually installed a GOG copy of Undertale on a 32-bit bargain bin laptop from 2008 running Windows XP Home. Not only did it install, it actually ran the game just fine.
 
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DNA_JACKED said:
Your best bet for compatibility is to torrent the disk based version.
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They don't host games that are available to buy (Gog, Steam etc.) but abandonware sites are a good place to get original disk rips/ISOs. I can't say they all work but the games I tried have worked for me. I usually use My Abandonware - they provide links to guides on getting the games running which is pretty nice.
 
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DNA_JACKED said:
Hey, I can answer this!

There is 0 guarantee. Some old games that didn't need any work to run will install fine, others won't. The reason is simple: the fixes to make these old games work are often coded in .net 4.5, which is not XP compatible. You'll get a "not valid x86 application" error. For example, three star wars games:

Battlefront: does not install. At all.

Empire at war: installs, but runs like dogshit with huge lag spikes. Disk version has no issues.

KoToR: installs and runs fine

All this is on a machine with an ivy bridge i7 and a gtx 285.

Your best bet for compatibility is to torrent the disk based version.
Click to expand...
This is exactly the kind of thing I wanted to know. Thanks.

This does complicate things. I didn't plan on connecting it to the internet, but that might be the only way to get old Steam games like FEAR 2 working. At least I know not to go all in on re-buying or re-downloading my old collection.
 
Sorry for the bump, but this might help some people.

DNA_JACKED said:
Hey, I can answer this!

There is 0 guarantee. Some old games that didn't need any work to run will install fine, others won't. The reason is simple: the fixes to make these old games work are often coded in .net 4.5, which is not XP compatible. You'll get a "not valid x86 application" error. For example, three star wars games:

Battlefront: does not install. At all.

Empire at war: installs, but runs like dogshit with huge lag spikes. Disk version has no issues.

KoToR: installs and runs fine

All this is on a machine with an ivy bridge i7 and a gtx 285.

Your best bet for compatibility is to torrent the disk based version.
Click to expand...
I was watching PhilsComputerLab, and he mentions for some games he installs on a modern OS, copies the folder to the retro PC, and in some cases deletes some wrapper .dlls. I've not had the opportunity to test it, but thought that might be useful.
 
There's light at the end said:
Try to look games repositories. There are plenty of abandonware sites. Like this one https://www.old-games.com/
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Is that site legit? Had a look and it seems to have a bunch of games that are still being sold, most of those abandoware sites pull down games that are on steam, gog etc. to not get in trouble.

I'm not complaining and will definitely be raiding it later for games, just surprised this kind of site is still around and not been taken down by publishers.
 
Stasi said:
Is that site legit? Had a look and it seems to have a bunch of games that are still being sold, most of those abandoware sites pull down games that are on steam, gog etc. to not get in trouble.

I'm not complaining and will definitely be raiding it later for games, just surprised this kind of site is still around and not been taken down by publishers.
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https://www.old-games.ru this one is 100% legit. I used it couple of times
 
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