Last week I was going through old games (non-GOG, some of them on disc) to try if they still work on my current Windows 10 PC. Many of them didn't and I either threw them away (if physical) or hid them from the library (in case of some non-compatible Gamersgate games).

There was one game however I very much regretted not being able to play no more, The History Channel - Civil War. I decided to build myself an offline retro gaming Windows XP machine, using an old desktop stored away in the cellar, that I still had the Windows XP installation disc for.

So now I have a Windows XP machine that I use to play two old The History Channel games, namely Civil War - A Nation Divided and The Great Battles of Rome.


My question: are there any games on GOG that won't run properly on Windows 10, but do run fine on Windows XP?

I'd like to know what other games are eligible for a Windows XP retro-gaming machine.

GOG have dropped Windows XP support, and some newly installed XP-era games could not run on XP by default (while they were designed for XP or XP compatible).

I've got some really old stuff to run on Win7 using compatablilty mode. You may find luck experimenting with some of the settings there.

It's more an issue with Microsoft than GoG. Depending on when your last update was on your XP machine, the internal root certificates are expiring.

Unfortunately every time you google for 'windows expiring root certificate", google thinks you're talking about web browsers so it;s kind of hard to point at an announcement of such. The idiot sitting behind me here at the library describing into his cell phone about how he got *cough* last night doesn't help either.

Folks can try forcing the issue but it;s not something I've tried:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2813430/an-update-is-available-that-enables-administrators-to-update-trusted-a

I have yet to find anything which does not run at all on Win10. Ensure you have all patches, fan made mods, engine replacements, notes from pcwiki etc. and you should be able to get most things running.

As far as The History Channel Civil War and Great Battles of Rome go, I've drawn a blank of finding patches, nor a PCGamingWiki article on them.

What a senseless waste. You could've at the very least sold them if you weren't keen on actually troubleshooting. Or, you could've used them in a virtual machine running WinXP or Win7.

It's not on this site, but one of my favorite games, Stars!, doesn't run on Win 7 and up. Maybe even Vista, but I skipped that one. From what I found, I needed a WinXP virtual machine. Ideally, Win 3.1 under DOS Box makes the game run.

Personally, I did something similar as DubConqueror; I resurrected my old Win98 PC to use with my older games (many of them are on GOG, but I have the original discs, so so need to purchase them), and Stars! runs there fine. Unfortunately, the best feature of the game, play by email, requires more like-minded people, and we seem to be a dwindling crowd.

I've gotten Patrician III on sale today from GOG and unlike the Gamersgate version, the GOG one does run under Windows 10, so I was able to de-install it from my retro-gaming machine. I don't use it very much anyway, as unplugging monitor, keyboard, mouse, sound and power from one desktop PC and plugging it into the other is quite some hassle each time I switch between modern PC gaming and the retro one. But I did finish the campaign of History Channel Civil War on it.

So what is it that doesn't work? Is it that the installer is a 16bit program, have you tried pulling over the unpacked files from the 98 install? Does it require libraries (specific dx or something)? I don't own the game (well I will check later as I have so many I can't remember) so don't have anything to test, but generally speaking if you have the files, it should be possible to get them running.

The game did install, but didn't start up. It's a moot point trying to get it to work however, when by spending €1,09 (currently in the sale) a functioning version can be bought on GOG. The best thing to do is not bother with a game from Gamersgate, a company that apparently doesn't put any effort into getting the old games they sell playable on modern machines and buy on GOG instead, a site whose original raison d'etre was to get old games playable.

*edit: Industry Giant is on GOG as well, I will 'gogify' that game as well when it goes on sale here. Afterwards there will be only game left on the retro-gaming machine, The History Channel Great Battles of Rome. I agree in part. Because of your comment, I checked the prices asked for the retail CD-ROM's I put away and was surprised to find Civilization III still has an asking price of 9 euro's, second hand. The other games ranged between 2,50-4,99.

For other games, the waste wasn't senseless as they were games I downloaded from an era before GOG, when the only way to download games without DRM was piracy. I stopped doing that when GOG came into existence, but I had some relics before that time, so what I threw away wasn't exactly worth anything.