I think GOG should just buy up any XP only game assets from Steam and make them DRM free. They don't need to make it work on Gog Galaxy as they never did really make it work on it. I bought a lot of games since 2014 I haven't had time to even register on Steam and I did it reluctantly and only because the sale was super cheap. Looks like I might have to rush register these and download them fast and clone the system.

As long as they offer the original ISO or a DRM free installer file that's good enough for me.

It would be nice if they made a separate peer to peer XP only Network Play Galaxy program so you can just play directly with your trusted buddies that you authorize just knowing kind of like AOL Instant Messenger but Game Messenger so any network game could be played and all GOG does it just send the game signals back and forth between only XP systems. They could make this server separate from their main one so it's isolated in case anyone tries hacking it it won't be a deal breaker for GOG's security or a concern.

¿¿¿ What even does this mean? Do you mean game engines? DLLs? Libfiles? Hmm, I wonder where I've heard of such a thing?

As for networking, if it's anything beyond what DOSbox handles already, why not look into something like Hamichi or whatever else is popular these days?
These are often the same people who insist on using Firefox ESR, IE 11, or Opera 15.

not really for example
you would have to look at just the old classic games like alddian, Star Wars: Dark Forces, Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast? but it gets complicated because some of the classic games are gog versions being sold on steam drm-free

really the only way is if someone actually bought every classic game on steam because even Tomb Raider II released on 1997 and came to steam works
here is a list of drm-free games or games that may need to delete or change a file to work without steam https://steam.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games

as for Galaxy the main object is drm-free although they do push there client for unknown reasons, really still not sure why they really want us to us it as much as they do.

also even firefox ended support, you cans till use it but no security which all companies need since programs keep getting more advance secuirty needs to also advance. https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2018/09/07/firefox-finally-casts-windows-xp-users-adrift/

**other topic**
coming from this https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/d3kkmw/steam-on-windows-xp-valve-new-features >> ''Windows XP users are a tiny fraction of Steam's overall user base, only 0.22 percent according to Valve's own tracking. However, 0.22 percent out of a total of 125 million Steam users, is roughly 275,000 users who will no longer have access to Counter-Strike unless they upgrade. That's a lot of potentially annoyed customers.''

The game assets I was referring to game titles written specially for 2K/XP that have DRM and doesn't exist on GOG. Bring those same titles over to GOG minus the DRM removed. Those who already bought them on Steam can now download it for free using their GOG account.

lol i switched from xp to 8.1 and i'm still minority.

You must be new here, and to this. GOG's entire modus operandi is offline installers, with GOG Galaxy existing as a convenience feature. You download them anywhere, take them anywhere.

When I say offline installers, I mean offline. You download them, they sit on a tape drive somewhere for 50 years and they'll still work, that kind of offline.

Parts of your lengthy maunder I am unable to parse due to how you keep using strange syntaxes and phrasing. I will be skipping or otherwise trying to ask a simple question to clarify.

On the matter of those assets (again), specifically what games are you seeking from the XP era that GOG doesn't have? Have you checked in the community wishlist?

Because what you're asking for has been entirely outmoded by modern systems. Did you even check the link I posted?

Not new here exactly but you can check my profile creation date 2013. But I've been doing this since the 80s or a bit prior to be exact. I'm well aware of what offline installers are and what GOG offline installers as I've been using DOS for quite some time now. Now the offline installers from GOG I extract them in Windows and convert them so that it can be run in Pure DOS. The ones that don't I have the actual Floppy Disks or CDs from the original game box from my enormous software collection.

As for tape drives I got a bunch of those from archiving during the BBS days and they aren't very reliable when retrieving data as sometimes the tape snips. Even modern tape drives I wouldn't consider that a viable option today for backup storage.

Using optical discs are a bit more reliable for long term storage combined with external USB powered hard drives. Currently I have several CDs that housed pretty much all the earliest collection of DOS games before the transition to CD based storage for games.

But getting back to your point because you were unclear or just not used to tech speak I'll have to layman it down further as I thought it was already layman enough but I was mistaken.

Again this request is not specifically for me but if there are any Windows 2000 or XP specific titles that have not yet become available on GOG's store "those" titles would be nice for GOG to acquire from Steam to be made DRM free if they already aren't able to run without a CD check or needing to be logged into Steam. Then any residual XP users from Steam could if they had a GOG account download the program DRM free. If this case of Steam really killing off XP accessibility is permanent in 2019 as the Op is worrying about then this is one way to solve it.

I hope that was clearer.

I wasn't intentionally trying to confuse or numb you with strange syntaxes or unfamiliar jargon.

The link you are referring to I assume is:
https://discordapp.com/

Discord -- For All-in-one voice and text chat for gamers that's free, secure, and works on both your desktop and phone. Stop paying for TeamSpeak servers and hassling with Skype. Simplify your life.

No I haven't used this program but I went ahead and downloaded it and may test this later. Are you recommending this for people to use to substitute for any chat/speech communication on XP? I'm not a heavy gamer anymore these days. The last real hard core gaming by me was done during the Starcraft 1 days and before that Warcraft 2 Battle.NET. Eating soup out of cans and then recycling them by pissing in them because I was too lazy to go to the bathroom and needed to join the next game. 24 hours non stop game after game. Yeah that was some serious gaming addiction that I had back in the day. But certainly those old Blizzard titles would have been nice if they could have been run on GOG Galaxy or a specialized GOG Galaxy XP only gaming server. I'm certain Battle.NET was probably the most popular gaming server at one point during the 90s and early 2000s. This was also before online console gaming that started taking off with the PS3.

Today I mainly make legacy operating systems run on modern machines from legacy DOS all the way to the latest Windows 10 all on one system. XP running on an i9-9900K octacore Coffee Lake Z370 is a more recent example of what has been achieved by me.

However I'm about to step back into gaming probably within this month as all these doors are slamming closed on XP permanently and it's time to get those paid for keys I hoarded for Steam that I never had time to claim and make them work before it's long gone forever. I might possibly do some Youtube videos later on to demonstrate some of these if I have time as it seems XP legacy gaming seems to be priming itself for a resurgence.

I guess that's what happens when an OS gets close to 20 years old. People get nostalgic...

I wouldn't put Linux at 5%. Last time I checked they were still far below XP's count and so was Windows 8.X and even MAC OS X. Most of these new estimates are probably unreliable at best. I would estimate that in China and India between these two nations combined there is a huge population still running XP on their systems but they don't get counted on these websites that are tallying the votes. And the US ones that do tally the votes probably already put in place restricting a certain OS from accessing their website. Government sites might do this so you'd be forced to use Windows 7 or 10 to login to even be counted as a guest. As a result you will not find any XP or Vista tallies counted since they weren't allowed to login.

That's just a guess as to what probably goes on. Then there's the spoofers who are using XP, Vista, and soon to be Windows 7 to spoof their browser agent to trick the websites into thinking they are using Windows 8 or 10 or using some web browser considered currently secure. So in the end nothing is really certain and I wouldn't put it behind Microsoft to squash the XP, Vista, and Windows 7 OS desktop marketshare count with a little bribery to favor Windows 10 as being the highest in order to fool consumers to upgrade soon since Windows 7 will be out of extended support in 2020.

It doesn't help MS likes to use the "no security updates" or "no longer supported" tactic to scare computer newbies into upgrading. Any system can get infected regardless of how new the OS is or if it is supported by MS. The #1 way someone infects their OS is user error. Running an infected malware or virus via an email attachment would probably be the easiest. Poor grandma got suckered into donating money to a helpless relative in crisis and now her computer is held for ransom or Western Union wire transferred money to her scammer. Other tricks are renamed executables made to look like .jpg or some other innocent document file type as an attachment. Changing your OS file settings to display the full file extension would actually help reveal these ones for what they are. The easiest way to save yourself a lot of grief (XP -> Windows 10) is to clone your partition somewhere safe. Then if you are ever stuck with a corrupted OS or an infected one you can safely return it back to its original working state and not lose any sleep over it. But not many follow this simple plan so the nightmare begins for these folks and they end up going to Geek Squad or get talked into buying a new machine.

Because users today expect modern conveniences? At least that's why I'm using it, especially when it comes to newer games that get updated quite a bit. GOG's offline-installer patch system is a pain in the ass... that is if they even provide a patch instead of simply replacing all of the setup files wholesale so everything has to be downloaded and re-installed again; not to mention the frequent delays in providing patches for the offline installers.

I don't think that's how it works. If GOG wants games they have to negotiate directly with the publisher (owner of the games) not another distributor. The only thing Valve can sell GOG is the rights to redistribute its own "Made by Valve" games (Portal, Half Life, etc) that are usually Steam exclusive. The biggest problem for a lot of retro-gamers is a lot of old games aren't available anywhere legally (including Steam). Where's Lemmings, Dune, etc? Same place as No One Lives Forever - stuck in "legal limbo" often as a result of a defunct developer either never being acquired before it goes out of business, or its new owner simply being uninterested in reselling old games. Or for many older sports / racing titles, a license to use a car or soundtrack expiring (eg, you can't buy Outrun 2006 anywhere due to expired Ferrari license). I'm also sure this is why GOG doesn't have many old racing / sports games involving real licensed teams.

As for XP, Galaxy actually dropped support before Steam did. Offline installers should still work fine, though there are some discrepancies vs "pure original" disc rips. Eg, old 90's point & clicks these days GOG includes as ScummVM releases. No problem as it still supports XP, however, if you want it running under "pure" MS-DOS (or even DOSBox without ScummVM), then they might lack the .exe compared to say a zip file on an "Abandonware" site.

Just curious though, what do you mean by "XP only" games? I know that's the 2001-2007 DX8-9 era stuff but I can't say I own a single game from then that runs only under XP and not W7? To me the most awkward time period for old PC gaming on modern hardware is between 1993-1995 where there were a few games releases as 16-bit Windows 3.1 titles that both won't run under 64-bit OS's (that dropped 16-bit support) but simultaneously also aren't MS-DOS apps that would otherwise natively under DOSBox. That stuff has been way more difficult to run under W7 than say NWN (2002), FEAR (2005) or Oblivion (2006) released during the XP era.

If you want to use the latest browser on XP go here:
https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=12102&p=83132#p83132

Click the "New Moon" link to go to the roytam1 website where he has forked the Pale Moon browser to work on Windows XP. He's done the same with the Basilisk browser if you want the absolute latest code.

Think by the time they drop Windows 7 the masses will be happy with streaming and wanting an offline copy of a game will be treated much the same way as wanting to keep your steam games that use the client working on XP.

The thing called "Steam" is a money laundering company.
GOG.com actually respects you as a customer and lets you "own" what you buy.
XP compatibility or not, the choice is clear.
Money grabbers more eager to release on Steam rather than GOG should alert any decent customer/gamer.
Take the "Ancestors Legacy" and the "Sudden Strike 4" developers for example.

I'm thoroughly annoyed that neither Steam nor Galaxy work on Macintosh System 7 or Amiga Workbench 3.

You don't need GOG Galaxy to play the games, contrary to Steam. It's DRM free.
You can download everything, patches included, as backup installers, from the GOG.com site.
Only the MP section of a game needs the GOG Galaxy client.