I don't use Galaxy so download all the offline installers and save them to my NAS, currently have all 655 games downloaded to my NAS taking up 2.5TB

I also re-download any updated games, but quite often my account shows a game is updated but the EXE is the same CRC as the one I already have so I always check the CRC if it's showing the same name as some games have been updated but the name/version has not been updated!!

Do you mean Annah? I got the impression she isn't going to join me yet, for now she has just badmouthed me and been snarky at me if I talk to her. I got an impression somewhere she can join me only later, but I have no idea when.

EDIT: Ah yes, indeedy:

https://torment.fandom.com/wiki/Annah#Recruiting_Annah

Although she can be found on the streets of Sigil very early in the game, she only becomes a companion at the mid-portion of the game, where she will automatically join the party after completing a task for Pharod.

I haven't finished the task(s) for Pharod yet, I just found the Bronze Sphere he apparently asked for, yet to deliver it back to him as I thought I'd check that Warrens of Thought area and Many-as-One first, before going back to Pharod. Not sure in which order all this shit should be performed or does it matter really.

I'd really need a thief in my party though, to be as a scout to detect any enemies and traps ahead. Hopefully I will get Annah soon.

I am generally positive about PS:T now. The characters and the story haven't blown me away the way I was expecting from all the praise (in fact I would even say I found the story and characters in e.g. Baldur's Gate 2 more interesting), but it is kinda interesting to play, and at least so far I haven't faced irritating battles which makes me pull my hair out, in fact the game seems quite easy and flows easily, not really stuck anywhere. The main point of the gameplay appears to be to save before every dialogue and try different options in them to get some better result (quite often giving you massive amounts of experience, by simply following certain discussion path).

Mainly two practical options (maybe more that I don't know/recall):

1. Using gogrepoc to download your games. It has the option to verify your installers too, against their md5 checksums. It does that automatically for all your downloaded games.

2. Either using a script to test all your installers with innoextract, and maybe also all your zip files (extras etc.) with 7-zip or similar, so that the script goes through all the subdirectories and does those tests for all installer files (.exe) and .zip files it finds.

Some have apparently made some tools for that purpose too.

If they are still in the Drowned Nations, she is not hireable yet. You can already meet her and talk a bit (and probably have Morte learn a couple new insults in the process), but she won’t join the team until later.

EDIT: Oops, I missed the last page of the thread before answering.

Yes, I have backed up everything (2217) and continue to get updates. That includes Demos and similar.

Just because it is a digital store and they have a cloud service, doesn't mean you shouldn't have a copy at home, like you would have had with older traditional stores.

I buy, and then download as soon as possible and then backup to multiple drives.

But each to their own.

P.S. Many folk have regretted not keeping a copy, ten or so years down the track. I also share with my family, in fact many of the games I buy are specifically for them, rather than me.

My bad, I misremembered from a partial playthrough many years back.

Out of curiosity, does that error check/message work for any games that have a single smaller install file? I'm pretty sure I've only seen the check box about verifying install files on the ones that come with multiple files. I installed my newest obsession, Banished, a few days ago and I'm nearly certain the check box wasn't there for its installation, and it's a pretty small installer.

I'm pretty sure option 1 isn't actually an option for me. I download the installers to a flash drive using a computer at my public library since I don't have internet at home, and the security on the library's system would prevent me from using gogrepoc, based on what I just read about it. Among others, it said at minimum "It requires a typical Python 2.7 or Python 3 installation and html5lib, requests and pyOpenSSL." I can't do that here at the library.

As for option 2, what you say there about using a script is a skill beyond my current ability, even if it's something I could do on my home computer without internet. If it's possible to do offline, I might be able to do it with step-by-step instructions, but for now everything you said there is beyond me. ;)

I used to backup all my gog games. I stopped a few years ago, and never managed to update my last backup. :(

It's very possible that I don't own enough hard drives and SSDs to back it all up, though.

I back up my favorite games yearly. Other games get backed up when I have extra time, so everything gets a full backup approximately every Blue moon. Importantly, I'm not downloading at backup time. I'm backing up games I've already downloaded. This means whenever I replay a favorite, a fresh copy is backed up and I then compare it to the older version to decide which, if either, I want to keep

Do they even make a (non-business/server) drive big enough to house all gog games and extras? Hmm..

I've seen some YouTubers showing 4 Tera byte portable drives, so I think it could fit my collection at least.

Even 6 TB for normal size or 8 TB for a larger format

True, the machine where you want to run gogrepoc must have python installed, and certain modules for it.

Windows generally doesn't seem to have python by default; Linux PCs do but even for them you'd need to install those extra modules with "pip install" etc. Probably not doable on public library PCs.

EDIT: UNLESS... I recall reading there is some utility to make a python script into an executable so that it contains all the needed "python stuff", and doesn't need python etc. installed at all??? I haven't tested it but that might work. Then the target machine wouldn't have to have python nor the modules installed, the executable contains them.

Then again I can't be sure if running some (unsigned?) executable on a public PC triggers some heuristic antivirus warning?

I think I googled and wrote it down somewhere how to achieve that both in Windows (a .bat file) and Linux (bash), but I need to check it... So basically the Windows batch file would go through all subdirectories within the current directory, and whenever it finds an .exe file, it runs innoextract to test the file (I don't think innoextract needs to be installed either, it can be as a portable standalone executable).

I tested it a bit earlier and the only problem was to see the report which was the actual file or even game that failed the test. So you would get a log file and it would contain information that some file failed the test, but no clear indication which files or games. I don't recall if I found an easy solution for that...

E.g. Western Digital MyBook (an external USB hard drive), they go up to 24TB.

https://www.westerndigital.com/products/external-drives/wd-my-book-usb-3-0-hdd?sku=WDBBGB0240HBK-NESN

I've had the 18TB version of that for maybe two years now for my GOG installers (and other stuff), it has worked fine.

Plus, naturally you can divide your stuff to several hard drives, if you don't want to buy one massive hard drive.

If you want something smaller and more portable, 5TB (2.5") USB hard drives have existed for many years, I've had two of such as well for several years now. They don't need an external power, the power from the USB port is enough for them.

https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/products/external-hard-drives/expansion-external-drives/

It is odd though those 2.5" USB hard drives haven't grown in capacity over the years, they are still selling those same max 5TB drives that I bought several years ago already... Maybe it is the external SSD drives where the evolution is now, but then there you pay more per GB and the extra speed of SSD is not that useful when you just want several terabytes to easily keep your stuff archived. Plus SSD might not be that good for longtime offline archives either, they need to be powered up every now and then in order not to lose data.