Hi there. No, I'm not talking about GOG games compatibility with XP or 7. Well, maybe a little, but not mainly that.

Here it is. I'm using a Mac (iMac Core 2 Duo 2,4), and on it, I've installed Bootcamp with Windows XP. I absolutely have no problem with it, it works very well.

Well, at least, very well for what I'm doing with it: playing games, and mainly not so recent games (it could be Monkey Island, Duke Nukem 3D or KOTOR for example, but also Bioshock).

And now, I'm wondering: what good could give me Windows 7 for what I'm doing on Windows?

I don't want to start a debate XP vs 7, but I'd just like to hear your opinion: should I stick to the good old XP, or should I upgrade to 7? What is the best concerning legacy compatibility? Which one would run better on my Mac?

Thanks ;)

In the long run it shouldn't matter, at least for Mr. Gog's games, but for others it should be XP hands down. There's been a lot of change to the various APIs over the nearly decade between releases.

Right now you'd be better off with XP, just because some of the games here haven't been updated to work with 7 yet, unless I'm missing something.

-_-

As for the OP, never had any problems running whatever on 7. I've been using it since release (I do casual development, music production, play games, and so on...)

You can always run the game with some compatibility option, with administrator rights... Never really had problems with any game so far.

If XP fits your needs, then keep it like it is. You only need 7 if you have applications that won't run on XP. Or maybe if you need 64 bits ( however you may want to check bootcamp's requirement in this respect )

I must say Win7 proved better than I expected it to be in term of retro-compatibility. I expected a true catastrophy, yet I'm still able to run most of my favourite games. But in some cases I still have to use a good old XP. Mainly for games that need very old DirectX/Directdraw

Ok, so I guess I'll stay with XP for now.
Maybe I'll give 7 a try on another hard drive, to see how it is concerning retro-compatibility.

Thanks for the answers guys! ;)

Windows 7 is by no means bad at compatibility. It's just that "very good XP compatibility" and "actually XP" are worlds apart when your favourite game no longer works. You see what I'm saying?

Windows 7 is a brilliant OS for people who intend to use it for more than just games. If you wanted something that was quicker and easier to use, more secure and reliable and generally just prettier than XP then it is a must have. But for old games and old games only you want an old OS and that's what XP is for.

That said a lot of incompatibilities I've discovered are due to DRM (disc checks) not liking Windows 7. So those problems tend to be easy to solve if you know where to go looking for a solution.

Not if the DRM takes effect near the end of installation, discovers it can't do it's job for whatever reason, and promptly removes the game again. Fortunately, the game I'm thinking of is on GOG so I bought it again.

Tages? That certainly sounds like bloody Tages. Although it does surprise me that even it realises how fucking incompetent it is. Now if only Tages could tell this to the fucking moron publishers who insist on infecting their games with it we might get somewhere.