I don't expect (nor want) Linux to become massively popular, I think it will eventually just because Windows sucks so bad, but in the meantime I just want it to be popular 'enough' to guarantee more native ports and developer support. I'd even settle for devs releasing their source code under the GPL, for fans to tinker with and port titles to Linux for them and mod as they see fit. id Software was legendary for their commitment to free software, it's why Doom has remained relevant after all these years and why so many new games are being released using it's engine. That's what I want from GOG, to open source their Galaxy client and let passionate programmers do their thing. It would do a lot to make GOG stand out, and foster a ton of good will.

The gaming industry is basically dead at this point, but at least we can work to bring Good old Games onto Linux.

That quoted statement in direct contradiction to an interview that two GOG employees gave to a youtuber a few weeks ago, the link to which was posted elsewhere on this board at that time.

In that interview, one of the GOG employees specifically said that one of the great reasons to buy games from GOG is because if a new OS comes out in the future, then GOG's devs are going to ensure that GOG games will be made compatible with that new OS.

If that be so, then the complaint given by the OP, and others who corroborate the OP's claims, those complaints should not be a thing.

GOG can't have it both ways in this regard, on the one hand GOG saying that a selling point of GOG is that they make GOG games compatible with modern OSes, then on the other hand, they don't actually do that with all GOG games.

Amazing information! I really enjoyed this thread and discussions by the people.

I think it may be an issue of scope. In the gaming world? I can see Linux steadily gaining popularity. But in the mainstream? Almost certainly not.

Venom works on windows 10 using dgVoodoo. Which is really simple to use. GOG did update Dark Reign: The Future of War for window 10 and 11 after long time. It seems they been slowing updating old games.

Last I checked incoming work on windows 10.

If Microsoft BlockChain Node service works, MS becomes more and more powerful in the future. Their plan is to offer Blockchain Node to a compaies like CDPR, if they get thousands of them, the power is sure. Even thousand is small, how about 10k companies who use their service.

CDPR should head to the future, not live in the past.

Ive always Windows Lite, i dont honestly need all that crap. I play games, listen music and watch porn. I can get my own firewall and virus protection too.

It's a nice promise but some stuff is simply out of GOG's hands. Eg, Microsoft already deprecated DirectDraw. Despite that the files are still included on Windows 10/11 ISO's and are installable as a feature (Programs & Features -> Turn Windows Features On/Off -> Legacy Components) - but for how long? If they get removed in future builds, many games will be broken (and some games like Commandos Ammo Pack are already not certified by GOG for W10 compatibility possibly for this reason). Since W8, Microsoft made some changes in the DWM that often breaks MSAA / VSync in DirectX8 and earlier games. Sometimes dgVoodoo (DX5-8 -> 11) wrappers works as a workaround but not always as well as natively. If you're lucky a great modding community can patch a newer DX9 game renderer in (Giants v1.5, Thief NewDark, etc) or make a great source-port. But whilst GOG can integrate those, it's mostly the modding community that's actually creating them (and not for all games).

In 5-10 years time where will Microsoft be? Deprecating DirectX7-9 too? Doubling down on the "your PC is a 27' mobile phone" cr*p complete with locked down sandboxing that kills off modding / compatibility tools? W11 recently introduced Smart App Control which "uses AI and Microsoft's cloud knowledge base to check every app that runs, blocking anything unsigned, unfamiliar, or known to be malicious. There is no whitelist, so blocked apps will only get through if their developers sign them". Or basically, it's an OS-level DRM kill-switch that mass blocks older games / mods by default. It's optional - for now - but will it remain so on W12 (or even later builds of W11)? No-one knows. And what if Windows 12/13 ends up Windows 365? Collecting 1,000x DRM-Free game installers seems rather pointless if the newest shiny OS it runs on suddenly needs a subscription / online account whilst aggressively blocking "unsigned" compatibility tools that causes half of them to break.

GOG has for the most part simply been lucky that for all their faults, Microsoft have (so far) been pretty good at backwards compatibility even for W10/11 and not that difficult to run offline. But as the saying goes "past performance is not indicative of the future" and such a promise of "always" having old games run on the newest Windows OS should not be taken as a guarantee in the face of some of Microsoft's 'visions of the future'...

based on your experience 20 years ago ??? ;D

I feel fine with norton atm. I even expanded my licence with some automatic clean up norton automatics, keep your cpu cores in check etc etc free from writing failures and or corrupted memory stuff.

It seems they are now part of even a bigger company that offers full security internet suits for anyone's needs.