I searched for topics, so if this was covered before, I didn't find it.

As time goes on, new games are made for new operating systems. Fewer and fewer brand new games will work on Windows 10 until there are none.

What about older games that ran on older OSes when they were first released? Will future GOG releases keep to those system requirements, running on 10, 7, XP, etc. as they originally did? Or will games be "remastered" and people forced to use Windows 11?

My gaming PC has Windows 10 and it's offline only. There's no connection now, never will be, and I will never use 11. My Linux PC is the only one with an internet connection. I can reinstall 10 on the other whenever I want without harassment from microsoft. I want the same to be true of GOG games I buy, offline use only, compatible with older OSes, and no restrictions on use.

Microsoft is behaving like steam, forcing people to be online to use the 11, forcing them to have "microsoft accounts" or they can't install it or run it, and worse, cut off from using what they paid for. No thanks.

Gog has been known to take old games and make them support newer operating systems and not list older operating systems some of them I hear even though they wasn't ''remastered'' or the like do to something done to em later down the line no longer worked on older systems despite having been bought with working on that older OS but then when checked no longer listed that older OS as compatible

Windows 11 is just Windows 10 kernel encumbered by a lot of worthless bullshit making a decent OS engine running like a farm tractor.

Games will run fine on Windows 10, for years to come, even after the end of shitty Microsoft official support for the OS.

Windows 10 is not the same as Windows 7, so no need to fret.

Microsoft have set the end of life for Windows 10 on October 14, 2025, at this point official service will end. . After this, it is likely that most companies and software providers will also phase out W10 support, as it will then be a "dead" OS.

I imagine it'll stick around longer than is strictly necessary on GOG, before quietly being discontinued.

Unless Microsoft does everything in their power to actually killswitch it or make it a target of vulnerabilities, that is.

After all, aside from killing the consumer arm, I think their second best platonic ideal (to them) would be forcing everyone onto a SaaS platform.

MS just need to end all support, and around 5 years later the industry will stop to know and support this OS, as it is considered "killed" and this will be its demise.

However... yes, the Win 10 OS is technically very close to Win 11 considering its kernel and it may work almost as long as Win 11, with the exception of some stubborn games simply refusing to work by its restrictive design (asking for a certain Windows version and checking it using the source code... kinda hard coded). However... for most gamers with some luck, Win 10 should still be able to run all new games for at least 4-5 another years from the time of "end of life as described by MS, which is October 2025". So i say, up to 2030 (2026, 2027, 2028, 2029) Win 10 is still fine... but it will be almost same for Win 11 which is actually already outdated in 2025, one of the shortest living MS OS ever made, as Win 12 will be released and replacing Win 11 at that point.

Win 12 is probably a rather different kernel with way more changes. It will take some time for the industry to adapt but they are gonna do it because MS is telling them what to use. The industry will support the stuff MS is supporting, as easy as that.

However... in order to improve matters on the support terms... MS usually is handing out "free upgrades". It is not done because of the altruism of MS... it is done so the industry along with its users are switching to a new OS as fast as possible. Kinda to remember: Your old OS is gone, a new will come and every system builder of a new PC is using the newest OS, in general.

Ultimately, no matter Win 10 or Win 11, both will basically face "end of support" in some way in 2025. While Win 11 may still get updates for another 5 years or so... Win 10 will not even get updates anymore (except for the industry), which can be a pro and con. Because "no OS updates means maximum compatibility with older games... nothing will break anymore". So Win 10 is actually the best "classic OS" at this point. In 2030 and up the security risk is simply to high and i would take this PC offline from this point. It will still be a great classic OS but not a "usual OS" for going Online, getting new games and doing work anymore. Kinda like a "classic console system".

Most likely, even on Steam, this launcher may stop to work with Win 10 but probably not any sooner than 2030, so there is still some good time left. Win 11, as i said... was never a great OS and it will "die" almost as fast as Win 10 at this point, so... Win 12 and up is unable to be avoided in the year 2030+ and the majority of new games will only work there, no other OS anymore.

Actually, I'd say that Win 10 may only become an option once it will completely stop getting updates, the update system being the main problem with it, even more so when they may change settings or block workarounds that get rid of the other issues. But there's a question of how will one, especially someone who stayed on 7 till then, legally get Win 10 after its end of support.

Every time a Windows OS reaches EOL, there's a huge amount of FUD on the issue:-

1. Windows 10's official end of support date is 14th Oct 2025 (Home / Pro / Education / Enterprise). However, W10 Enterprise LTSC is supported all the way through to 13th Jan 2032 (and that can run 100% offline if necessary). Despite Microsoft's own endless BS spiel that it's a "special version for ATM's & MRI scanners" that's somehow "unsuitable" for general use, in reality it's just a regular W10 build (complete with Game Mode, DirectX12 and XBox services) with less bloat & telemetry that's been highly popular amongst gamers and makes the perfect 'Long Term Stable' computer in general. It's easily activated offline too.

2. Windows 7's "official" end of support date was 13th Jan 2015, yet in reality that got extended all the way through to 10th Jan 2023, a whopping +8 years. Even today Mozilla said they will support Firefox on W7 through to March 2025. The same will happen to W10 and MS are already discussing multi-year extensions. In theory you have to be a corporation that pays for them. In practise it took one person all of 3 days to create a simple utility that slipstreamed 2021-2023 ESU updates into regular consumer W7 ISO's, so expect the same with W10.

3. An OS reaching end of official support doesn't mean that existing games working on current hardware will stop working on same hardware. Look at the various retro-rigs out there with Youtuber's like LGR still installing Win 98, NT4, etc, on hardware of the era. Worst case, you want to remain on W10 for the next 30 years offline = just buy a couple of spare CPU & Motherboards of the newest hardware generation that's W10 compatible and that's your future "retro-rig" built in advance. :-)

4. An OS reaching end of official support doesn't mean that new games won't work on an older OS for quite a few years. Look at the Does it Run on W7 thread here to see reduced compatibility is an ongoing process that has taken almost a decade (2024 vs 2015) just to see an increase in titles that don't work and people are still reporting many 2024 titles work fine. Games usually only stop working due to a combination of gradual adoption of new API's (eg, no DX10 on XP, no DX12 on W7) and newer versions of Unity / Unreal engines being compiled to make Kernel calls that are specific to new OS's. And even then there are often workaround, eg, Myst (2021) didn't work on W7 due to defaulting to DX12 API, however start the game with -dx11 command line switch and it worked with no problem. And to give a sense of perspective, the newest .NET 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, etc, Runtime dependencies also still work on W7, and DirectX versioning itself has significantly slowed down with many games still coming as DX11 as the norm despite DX12 now being 9 years old, so W10 has a long way to go with MS themselves legally guaranteeing they'll have to make the next 8 years of Visual Studio dependencies W10 compatible anyway due to LTSC.

5. An OS reaching end of official support doesn't mean that an older OS won't work on newer hardware for a few generations. Microsoft has churned out a lot of FUD of how 6th gen (Skylake) Intel was the last supported for W7. Back in the real world, people are running W7 on 12th Gen Intel / Ryzen 5000's just fine. And the difference between W10 vs W7 (eg, W7 lacking DX12, GPU hardware scheduling, Resizeable BAR, out of the box NVMe / XHCI USB, UEFI Class 3 boot, SecureBoot, heterogenous CPU's (P vs E core awareness), WPA 3 authentication, Bluetooth 5, FIDO2, etc) is far greater than the difference between W11 vs W10 (basically all W10 is missing is 6GHz WiFi 6E/7 that most people don't even have a matching router for anyway) in terms of hardware compatibility / architecture.

6. 99% of security is common sense, and someone running an older OS that has a whitelisted firewall, sitting behind a router with its own firewall / NAT and its default password changed / remote access disabled and has actually taken the time to disable a load of backdoor crap that W11 keeps open as standard is probably a damn site more secure in practise than running MS's latest & greatest with its Secondary Logon, Remote Desktop Configuration, Remote Desktop Services, Remote Registry, Server, etc, services all enabled by default and its outgoing firewall wide open to let anything and everything to chatter away in the background but claim it's "secure because I updated it and that's all that matters" (rolls eyes). It's also increasingly common to see "split usage", ie, rather than use one desktop PC for everything, people often use a phone / tablet / laptop / Chromebook for online banking / communications / secure stuff and just use the desktop for gaming, at which point for single-player offline games it really doesn't matter what OS you use.

tl:dr - W10 will be around anyway for another 8 years (LTSC) and if you want to stay on it, it's entirely feasible to do so. And even after 2032, it'll still work for most older games just as W7 and XP do today.

Agree 100%.

Although I use win10 (and previously 11) on the tablet, on my main computer, I only started used win10 after Steam stop support older OS's.

I use LTSC, and although I mod it a little, removing some uneeded services etc, it runs like a champ. I never update Windows anyway, unless there's a feature I really need.

For what's worth, you can only download Windows 10 LTSC from Microsoft website with a account, otherwise you can only get a "test demo version" that cannot be fully activated after 90 days. There's a couple of places to get the genuine full version, I used https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_links

DOS machines still function today. You can take the files out of your gog dos games and copy them back. If there is a will, there is a way.

With any luck, you may even find linux flavors gaining more traction. Hell could freeze over first, but anything is possible ;)

The problem here is that GOG (and likely other sites) view is, "Once you download, no refunds". Unless somebody else can demonstrably prove that a new game runs on 10, consumers are risking purchase without possible refund.

That's very outdated.

The future of Windows 10 will be the same as any Windows before 10, that is, it will be left aside in a few years to force everyone to migrate to Windows 11, simple as that.

I'm seriously considering using Linux. At least I'll be supporting a noble cause, instead of giving money to a shadowy monopoly.

i fully expect Gog to become an app on the Windows 12 store where you rent old games by the week

clearly the future of Windows 10 support is death with the key word being 'support'