I got an XP laptop and wanted to install my nostalgia games in it but some GOG games don't install.

The installers without .bin files are installed without a problem but if an installer has a .bin file in the folder, it just doesn't install.

Is there any maniac other than me who likes building retro machines and has experience installing GOG games on those machines? Thanks in advance!

The games I had problem so far:

The Settlers 3 (the reg file inside it doesn't work properly on WinXP)
Syberia 1 (the installer has .bin file)
The Longest journey (same like above)
Sanitarium (same like above)

Thanks in advance!

Is it giving specific errors?

My first guess is dependencies aren't installed, the 2015 ones that have the weird long filenames, unless the installers require an API usage of newer versions of windows that older ones don't have.

Next question, the XP machine is probably 32bit? Are you trying to run 64bit programs? Linux/unix systems this is easy (using file commend), windows, you might get information from the properties, if it knows or cares.

edit: Well it's a 32bit executable....

Anyways, giving /? to the exe file gives a help window, says to use /LOG when running the program (use commandline, or make a shortcut and append /LOG to the running exe path), this will create a log file we can then dissect 'from the temp folder'.

Might as well be a limitation on InnoSetup's list of supported systems.
Alternatively to running the installers directly, you can try to extract the installer beforehand and run the unpacked game in your XP PC.

Installers with .bin files will also contain a matching .exe file (which extracts the .bin files). At the risk of asking a really obvious question, are you (a) downloading and then running the .exe file? (b) ensuring that the related .bin files are in the same folder as that .exe file before running it?

Hadn't occurred to me he hadn't gotten all the files, or moved them into different folders. I'd assumed it was a windows version technical error or dependency.

A while back i experimented with trying to resize the bin files (merging, moving data to make fewer or more bins) and the installer flatout barfs if you don't have the right number of files that are all the right size. So i should have considered it.

Though having him give us a log information of what's actually barfing would be nice.

GOG have changed their installers. In the past they were RAR installers. At the same time, RAR installers only used bin files for games larger than 4 GB. Now there will be a separate bin file, no matter how small the game is.

It's possible that the new installers are no longer compatible with XP. I don't have an XP machine, so I cannot say for certain. The OP should provide error messages.

- GOG use InnoSetup for the basis of their installers, and they support "every Windows release since 2006", ie, going back to Vista but not XP. They also use some proprietary non-standard "Galaxified" way of storing files (as Galaxy streams). So one of those two things may have broken it.

- If all else fails, use InnoExtract to extract (without installing) the files from the GOG installers. Innounp does the same thing but also preserves the registry entries in case you need to add them. You can create your own zip of them instead.

- Some games on your list, eg, The Longest Journey and Sanitarium run better under ScummVM which supports as far back as Win95.