Hi guys, just joined GOG and am looking to start purchasing, downloading, installing some games for my new computer running Windows 11. After going through some of the Forums here, it seems to me there are a few ways to go about doing this and I was just hoping for a little bit of guidance from anyone who is knowledgeable on the subject. I would prefer to not use a "Client" installer for the games (like Steam ect), and would like to just be able to download the game safely and then be able to use the files/play the games as unconnected from any online needs as possible. From what I have read, the options seem to be:

1 - Download GOG Galaxy and use that to download AND install the games you purchase. Benefits to this would be that the Galaxy program will allow you to pause and resume a download whenever you need to (incase the computer needs to be shut down, ect), and it will handle the installation process as well. Downloads will have far less chance of being corrupted as well.

2 - Don't use Galaxy, and download the Offline Installers that way with the 1MB .exe file and the other numerous .bin files and install the game yourself. Downside would be that you'd have to download the whole game files all in one sitting (no pausing/resuming downloads), and there may be a much higher chance of corruption in the files.

3 - Download GOG Galaxy and use it ONLY as a download manager, and choose to download the Offline Installer files through Galaxy, and then install the game files yourself on your computer. You'd get the benefit of being able to pause and resume downloads without any issues, and the files would again be far less susceptible to corruption, and I would not be as connected to any "Client" installer ect.

I would prefer to use option 3 (if I have all of this info correct), just wanted to get some opinions on if this will work and if I have missed any important steps. Very much appreciate any info/help you guys can share!

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/gogrepopy_python_script_for_regularly_backing_up_your_purchased_gog_collection_for_full_offline_e
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/lgogdownloader_gogdownloader_for_linux
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/gogcli_gog_client

Community tooling for easier management of offline installers. They all allow you to resume your downloads and they all perform integrity checks (I can empirically tell you so for mine and I've heard enough about the other ones to confidently tell you that they do the same).

They are all command line tool although I eventually want to add a user-interface for mine and I vaguely recall that the maintainer of gogrepoc intends to do the same.

EDIT: The parent github repos are authoritative for lgogdownloader and gogcli, but if you decide to use gogrepoc, you want to use Kalanyr's fork as the original repo is no longer maintained (https://github.com/Kalanyr/gogrepoc)

Point number 1 is inaccurate. Galaxy files get corrupted during download all of the time, equally as much if not more so then "backup copy" offline installer files downloaded directly from the GOG website do. Galaxy downloads often fail right near the end, too.

Point number 2 is also inaccurate because you don't have to download all the files in one sitting, since they are divided into different parts. You could, for example, download the first part in one sitting, and the subsequent parts in later sittings.

Despite Galaxy files often getting corrupted during download (the same thing also happens with the backup copy offline installer files from the website too, though), I recommend using Galaxy to download all your games.

Because otherwise, if you don't download your games with Galaxy, then you have to manually click on each and every file of every part of every game you are backing up, and you also have to manually verify with your eyes each file part number, all the time, constantly, in order make sure you are downloading all of the parts without forgetting or missing any....all of which very quickly becomes extremely tedious & aggravating to do.

So downloading offline backup installers without Galaxy isn't worth the tedium & aggravation IMO and/or the potential human errors you can make in missing file parts of some of your games.

Also, how you state point number 2 is also inaccurate because you seem to be under the mistaken perception that if you download files via Galaxy, then the files won't be in parts with numbered bin files. Actually, yes they will.

The files you get are the same either way, whether through Galaxy or the website. Galaxy just automates the process of downloading them a bit more than the website downloading option does.

Another option is use a third-party download manager. I use Free Download Manager, that has a Firefox Extension that once configured properly (one thing I do like is telling it to download only 1 thread at a time and not multiple downloads as that will only cause HDD fragmentation) is a very easy method to cue the separate files of an installer for a game or even cue downloads for several games.

Rightclick a file to save-as, FDM asks you if you want to use it to download the file and if you refuse you can just download the file regularly. If you choose cueing the files in FDM, you can select the location from locations you downloaded to earlier. Which I find very handy to put GOG files in the GOG folder, Indiegala in the Indiegala folder and non-game files in the Download folder.

I've never had problems with files I download to be corrupt (alas GOG installers can only verify at installing, they used to have an option to just verify built-in, but GOG axed that years ago), so I wouldn't know if a download manager would help with unstable connections though.

Edit: P.S.: it's this one I'm using: https://www.freedownloadmanager.org/

Who else misses the GoG Downloader?

I've only ever used offline installers and have never had a single corrupt file. 30 years ago on 56k dial-up modem on a "noisy" phone line maybe, but if you are experiencing such severe data corruption that just downloading normal .exe's without a client causes them all to be corrupt, you should definitely contact your ISP / replace your router. I mean, how do you think people manage to download other hundreds of Megabytes to multi-Gigabytes sized files like Windows / Office / Linux ISO's, AMD / nVidia GPU drivers, games bought from stores without clients (eg, Humble), large PDF's, video files, or even the .exe's that install Galaxy / Steam / Origin, etc, clients in the first place via the same browser?...

I purchased a laptop only for play games, the ones the hardware let's me to. I like old stuff so I'm WAY ok. My laptop is 24/7 on airplane mode, so i simply download the offline installers to my phone, then USB them to the notebook. The goodies are OK in the phone anyway, i like to read the manuals and lore while in the train or the damn bus.

Actually I am almost the opposite of the original poster.
1) what I want is the 'steam' experience, to click and have a game downloaded and installed with no further action. I don't want to have to unzip into some new/selected location, and don't want to have to run some installer that my antivirus might not know about and might not like.
2) itch.io is a pain because you download one file (it might be a zip or an installer), depending on what the developer uploaded but it is NEVER a complete auto-installed game.

I just joined GOG, in order to see if it can do complete downloads and installs without any further action from me
- and as a developer, i want to upload complete (expanded directories/files) for my games to ease customers use.

Is GOG like this (like steam) ??

GOG offers multiple ways to get your games:

1. Download the offline installers: You still need to execute these to install however they have the benefits of being stored remotely so you don't need to download again aside from patches and you have your own copy to ensure you always have the game if anything ever happens.

2. Using GOG Galaxy which is a client similar to Steam in that it handles downloading and installing the program. Galaxy can also handle game installation from other stores such as Steam, Epic, Ubisoft and such. It's trying to be an all in one hub.


There are also 3rd party clients like Lutris and Heroic which can also handle downloading and Installing GOG games however these also work in Linux.


So you have plenty of choices in how you want to handle installing games.

Galaxy has it's own forum here if you want to learn more

https://www.gog.com/forum/general_beta_gog_galaxy_2.0#1651521905

Me, lots.

+1. Miss it a lot to be honest and hope for its return. Cheers

I get why people might want a client for features, and this comment isn't aimed at you personally, but people in general really need to stop spreading "browser download = file corruption" FUD when downloading perfectly normal files using a perfectly normal web browser using entirely normal, reliable and secure https protocols. The last time I had regular dropouts that interrupted file downloads badly enough they needed to be re-downloaded was on analogue modems. I've never had any such problems with DSL even going back to early non-fibre ADSL v1.0 with 8mbps download speeds over 1960's copper pair. In fact I just started a download, suddenly disabled my network adapter in Control Panel halfway (without "properly" pausing it in the browser), re-enabled the network adapter, and it resumed right off from where the connection dropped with zero data corruption or need to restart.

And no you don't have to "download the whole game all in one sitting" if it's split up into 4GB chunks. And even then, a 4GB chunk for me downloads over fibre in like 6-7mins yet people act like downloading via a browser = returning to that era where you had to download large files over one of these overnight to avoid hogging the phone line during the day. LOL.

...

Meh. I would use it just to mass download lots (=all) of my GOG game installers, and for that there are nowadays much better tools, like gogrepoc and lgogdownloader.

Well, ok, I admit that downloading e.g. CP2077 with its countless .bin files is a bit of a hassle with a mere web browser... but it is still bearable if you don't have to do it for lots of games at the same time. Not enough reason for me to want to install and use an additional downloader client (ie. GoG DownlOadEr).



I actually had that kind of problem... over 10 years ago when I tried to download a bunch of my GOG game installers in rural Thailand using apparently an unreliable 3G mobile data connection for the download. Or it might be I was using the motel's wifi internet which was quite unreliable.

Then again, the failed downloads happened while using the old GOG Downloader client, not a web browser. So it seems even that "legendary" downloader client couldn't help me in that situation. I had to redownload some games/files all over again.

But after that, no problem. I download my GOG games either with a web browser (Chrome or Firefox, I prefer the latter for downloads for some reason), or gogrepoc.py.