Could I confirm whether gog have recently revised their policy for games with XP support? The reason I ask is that there a couple of very recent releases that should support XP in principle, but the requirements section states Vista as the minimum.

For example, SINS OF A SOLAR EMPIRE states Vista minimum on gog, but it only requires directx9c, and the main site (https://www.sinsofasolarempire.com/faq) states that XP SP3 is runnable. Also, gog states that Vista is the minimum for FALLEN ENCHANTRESS: LEGENDARY HEROES, but the official site (http://www.elementalgame.com/fallen-enchantress/overview) mentions that XP is fine - as one would expect for a directx9 game.

So is the reason that gog don't list XP on the aforementioned examples due to a genuine compatibility issue (gog installer perhaps), or are they just cautiously omitting XP due to lack of testing on their part?

If anyone happens to be a gog representative, or in the know, or has experience running the mentioned games on XP via a gog installer then I'd much appreciate their input. So thanks in advance!


PS: I'll say pre-emptively that I'm not interested in the security implications of XP, as I just use Linux online and for any important stuff. I have legit licenses for Windows 7, but I don't want to further entrench my dependence on Microsoft - especially when there is no further functionality required. Games are the one area where Windows is still a necessity, and fortunately many developers are coming round to making Linux compatible versions now.

The site also mentions the same. No, the main site mentions that Sins of a Solar Empire: Trinity supports XP. Not Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion, which is what GOG sells.

I've noticed this with Her Story and Rebel Galaxy. Steam lists XP as a minimum for both games, but GOG does not.

Maybe they aren't testing games on XP anymore? So they can't be 100% everything works a-ok as noone wants to use that piece of shit OS to playtest games? (Win2000 was and is better as I have said before)

XP isn't supported anymore by Microsoft, so it's normal it's dying.

GoG doesn't have to test games against OS-es they don't want to. Valve doesn't playtest games they publish on Steam and they just go with the dev flow, everything the dev throws out, Valve pukes to Steam.

@Grargar

Good point – I shouldn't have omitted "Rebellion". Yes it seems that Vista is the standard for that game, not sure why as it is directx9c, but I suppose we can assume that the developer knows something.

Anyway, my point still stands with regard to FALLEN ENCHANTRESS: LEGENDARY HEROES. Steam also lists this game as XP SP3 compatible.

@idolminds

Like you, I have occasionally noticed discrepancies between Steam and gog requirements. My hunch is that gog are probably not willing to commit themselves to promising XP compatibility, although in practice the game would probably work, but it would be good to have some official confirmation. By default the directx9 games should work with XP unless there is some obscure non-compatible dependency included.

I have played Fallen Enchantress on Win XP.
I've got a lot of crashes while saving and loading but from what i can understand it's not releted to the OS. Other people with the same OS ran it fine.

It's quite chaotic.

Giana Sisters - Twisted Dreams did officially support WinXP when I bought it here but WinXP support was removed later without a word. I just hope, that the current version still works on my XP since I don't have the old one anymore and it doesn't work properly via WINE yet.

System Shock 1 doesn't officially support WinXP here, but since the new port was initially made for WinXP, it works just fine for me.

Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms does officially support WinXP, but it constantly crashes a few seconds after the initial dialogue although my system is very stable in general.

'No further functionality is required'?

What does that even mean?

@seleapi
Thanks for that info. Do you have the gog version?

@Klumpen0815
It's curious if gog are removing XP support for previously XP supported titles. Hopefully it's a case where they are no longer supported in theory, but will still work in practice. The only practical reason I could imagine they wouldn't work is if there is a dependency issue with the latest installer or gog Galaxy (which I don't use), but that would be pretty lame.

@Darvond
I think this is quite self explanatory really, but here goes... If a game is designed to run on Windows XP then I shouldn't need to install a more recent version of Windows to run it. I hope you find this more understandable.

The really weird thing is, that "Rise of the Owlverlord" which came later has WinXP in the list.
Maybe XP-support was removed because support wasn't able to solve some problem? This is exactly the point where I'm so miffed about the current version of Grandia II.
My old CDs of Grandias PC port play well under XP since there wasn't any Vista yet on the horizon by far when it came out, not even XP Service Pack 2 and yet the "anniversary edition" doesn't support XP although it's really not a game that uses any fancy DirectX10/11 stuff or 8GB RAM... -.-
It didn't even get a widescreen treatment which is even possible with the Dreamcast version and an emulator with widescreen hack.
I'd love to have it in a nice digital and DRM free form but no chance as it seems.