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Has anyone installed the Windows 10 version 20H2 update? If so, have you had any issues with it breaking games, especially older games?

I know Microsoft in typical fashion will ultimately force the update, but for now it's optional. So I'd like to postpone as long as possible until it can be verified it doesn't break most of my games.

Thanks,
Craig
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Of course it breaks things. The DX9 component installer being discontinued should be sign enough.

The best way to postpone the update is to lay it off entirely and hire a better worker, like Linux. Thanks to the works of Valve via Proton, Wine has made crazy strides in the last few years, giving parity or even better performance than many native games.
low rated
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Darvond: Of course it breaks things. The DX9 component installer being discontinued should be sign enough.

The best way to postpone the update is to lay it off entirely and hire a better worker, like Linux. Thanks to the works of Valve via Proton, Wine has made crazy strides in the last few years, giving parity or even better performance than many native games.
Linux is awful and no one uses it. Wine is just using a windows version and not an actual real native version for linux. Performance is actually worse most of the time, if the topic creator wants backwards compatibility it's not a good idea to use linux since backward compatibility is basically non existent on it.
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Darvond: Of course it breaks things. The DX9 component installer being discontinued should be sign enough.

The best way to postpone the update is to lay it off entirely and hire a better worker, like Linux. Thanks to the works of Valve via Proton, Wine has made crazy strides in the last few years, giving parity or even better performance than many native games.
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.Ra: Linux is awful and no one uses it. Wine is just using a windows version and not an actual real native version for linux. Performance is actually worse most of the time, if the topic creator wants backwards compatibility it's not a good idea to use linux since backward compatibility is basically non existent on it.
Looool
Try harder next time boyo
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Darvond: Of course it breaks things. The DX9 component installer being discontinued should be sign enough.

The best way to postpone the update is to lay it off entirely and hire a better worker, like Linux. Thanks to the works of Valve via Proton, Wine has made crazy strides in the last few years, giving parity or even better performance than many native games.
Thank for the quick reply, but switching to Linux is not a viable option for me. But thanks anyway for the suggestion.

Regarding the discussion about To Linux or Not To Linux, I didn't intend to set off a debate over OS's. :-D

I do use dgVoodoo, ScummVM or ResidualVM for many of my older games (i.e. games from 1990's and early 2000's). So I assume these tools will eventually be updated to work with the 20H2 update. Also 99% of my games come from GOG, with only a handful from Steam. Both of these sites are pretty good at making sure the games they sell continue to work on newer OS's whenever possible.

The lack of DX9 support is troubling, but in fairness it was released for Windows 98 and XP in 2002, 19 years ago. As mentioned above, I expect dgVoodoo, ScummVM and ResidualVM will eventually address the lack of DX9 support in version 20H2. But it's the games that are not supported by these tools that most concern me.

I hope this clarifies my question. :-)
Post edited February 10, 2021 by craig_s_russell
That's actually the function of Windows Updates, I always have problems with my older games, often it solve with a new Update but until then you have to be patient, that's why I prefer Windows 7 and XP.
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Ruvika: That's actually the function of Windows Updates, I always have problems with my older games, often it solve with a new Update but until then you have to be patient, that's why I prefer Windows 7 and XP.
I 110% agree that Windows 7 and XP are the preferred platform for older games. Unfortunately I don't have access to these. I'm not sufficiently skilled in technology to get a multi-boot PC configured. I've tried Oracle's VirtualBox and been less than impressed with it's capabilities. And finally the other VM products cost more than I want to spend on hobby like gaming.

Have you encountered any specific games which don't work on version 20H2?
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Ruvika: That's actually the function of Windows Updates, I always have problems with my older games, often it solve with a new Update but until then you have to be patient, that's why I prefer Windows 7 and XP.
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craig_s_russell: I 110% agree that Windows 7 and XP are the preferred platform for older games. Unfortunately I don't have access to these. I'm not sufficiently skilled in technology to get a multi-boot PC configured. I've tried Oracle's VirtualBox and been less than impressed with it's capabilities. And finally the other VM products cost more than I want to spend on hobby like gaming.

Have you encountered any specific games which don't work on version 20H2?
So what actually stops working? As far as I can tell, and this is many years using all versions of windows, I have not had an issue running things that can’t be fixed with a bit of leg work. If you mean does specific updates like removal of DX9 impact then yes. Things change, if they kept everything they had ever done in every release/update it would take over 100gb. For those who need directx9 just get a hold of it, for instance:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/microsoft_has_removed_the_directx_9_installers_from_their_download_site/?search=Directx
I mean,if your that into retro gaming, why do not have an offline backup of these kind of things?
True the 32 to 64 bit switch over was a real pain, but even then you might need to unpack rather than use installers, or grab a different exe.
This whole, M$ make an update and everything stops working myth really should be over by now. If you have all the proper tools ready, then it’s nothing more than an inconvenience.
It’s far more likely that a new game won’t work for you, or some client crap will trash your system.

Tools you should have backed up offline are like:
Dosbox, scummvm, dx9, c++ extensions, various versions, cracked exes for all older games with drm.
Also, keep a link to pcgamingwiki.com, lots of good information.
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craig_s_russell: I 110% agree that Windows 7 and XP are the preferred platform for older games. Unfortunately I don't have access to these. I'm not sufficiently skilled in technology to get a multi-boot PC configured. I've tried Oracle's VirtualBox and been less than impressed with it's capabilities. And finally the other VM products cost more than I want to spend on hobby like gaming.

Have you encountered any specific games which don't work on version 20H2?
avatar
nightcraw1er.488: So what actually stops working? As far as I can tell, and this is many years using all versions of windows, I have not had an issue running things that can’t be fixed with a bit of leg work. If you mean does specific updates like removal of DX9 impact then yes. Things change, if they kept everything they had ever done in every release/update it would take over 100gb. For those who need directx9 just get a hold of it, for instance:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/microsoft_has_removed_the_directx_9_installers_from_their_download_site/?search=Directx
I mean,if your that into retro gaming, why do not have an offline backup of these kind of things?
True the 32 to 64 bit switch over was a real pain, but even then you might need to unpack rather than use installers, or grab a different exe.
This whole, M$ make an update and everything stops working myth really should be over by now. If you have all the proper tools ready, then it’s nothing more than an inconvenience.
It’s far more likely that a new game won’t work for you, or some client crap will trash your system.

Tools you should have backed up offline are like:
Dosbox, scummvm, dx9, c++ extensions, various versions, cracked exes for all older games with drm.
Also, keep a link to pcgamingwiki.com, lots of good information.
I also keep my own copy of important items like DX9 installer, dgVoodoo, etc. I'm used to doing some work to get older games to work on Windows (including Windows 7). But there have been cases where Microsoft totally broke games beyond repair for me. For example, "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" will not run on Windows 10 because there's some sort of license check DLL that was removed from Windows 10 that this game depends on. Also occurred on my copy of LOTR Battle for Middle Earth. Aggravating, but not the end of the world. After all they're just games.
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craig_s_russell: Have you encountered any specific games which don't work on version 20H2?
I haven't had any problems so far, but I had the DirectX 9C installers backed up.
The NWN2 toolset refused to start until I reinstalled those.
The only games I've played since updating to 20H2 a couple days ago are:

Horizon Zero Dawn
Planet Nomads
Dead State

Each of the above still play just fine on 20H2.

Prior to this 20H2 update there are already older games I cannot play on W10:

Thief 1 & 2: Troublesome but I may be able to get them working if I put some elbow-grease into it.

Stalker Call of Pripyat: Only loads up one time. If I save and quit (or, well, just quit - the save has nothing to do with it), it won't load up again until I reboot the PC - then it's again good for one single time (rinse and repeat). Oddly enough, the stand-along Doctor X Call of the Zone, works fine and will load up again and again without the required reboot.

That's it so far since 20H2...
So far it's fine with the exception of The Witcher 3, which gave me a BSOD Kernel Security Check Failure. It's the first BSOD ever I had with Windows 10.
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thegreyshadow: So far it's fine with the exception of The Witcher 3, which gave me a BSOD Kernel Security Check Failure. It's the first BSOD ever I had with Windows 10.
I've been playing Witcher 3 on 20H2 without any problems.
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Martek: ...

Stalker Call of Pripyat: Only loads up one time. If I save and quit (or, well, just quit - the save has nothing to do with it), it won't load up again until I reboot the PC - then it's again good for one single time (rinse and repeat). Oddly enough, the stand-along Doctor X Call of the Zone, works fine and will load up again and again without the required reboot.
...
That mod is based upon Call of Chernobyl engine which uses an iteration of Open X-Ray instead of the original X-ray engine.
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nightcraw1er.488: So what actually stops working? As far as I can tell, and this is many years using all versions of windows, I have not had an issue running things that can’t be fixed with a bit of leg work. If you mean does specific updates like removal of DX9 impact then yes. Things change, if they kept everything they had ever done in every release/update it would take over 100gb. For those who need directx9 just get a hold of it, for instance:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/microsoft_has_removed_the_directx_9_installers_from_their_download_site/?search=Directx
I mean,if your that into retro gaming, why do not have an offline backup of these kind of things?
True the 32 to 64 bit switch over was a real pain, but even then you might need to unpack rather than use installers, or grab a different exe.
This whole, M$ make an update and everything stops working myth really should be over by now. If you have all the proper tools ready, then it’s nothing more than an inconvenience.
It’s far more likely that a new game won’t work for you, or some client crap will trash your system.

Tools you should have backed up offline are like:
Dosbox, scummvm, dx9, c++ extensions, various versions, cracked exes for all older games with drm.
Also, keep a link to pcgamingwiki.com, lots of good information.
avatar
craig_s_russell: I also keep my own copy of important items like DX9 installer, dgVoodoo, etc. I'm used to doing some work to get older games to work on Windows (including Windows 7). But there have been cases where Microsoft totally broke games beyond repair for me. For example, "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King" will not run on Windows 10 because there's some sort of license check DLL that was removed from Windows 10 that this game depends on. Also occurred on my copy of LOTR Battle for Middle Earth. Aggravating, but not the end of the world. After all they're just games.
Yes, so what you are talking about there is windows 10 removes securom and safedisc support per:
[url=https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Return_of_the_King]https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings:_The_Return_of_the_King[/url]
This is a good thing, they are awful bits of software, which like denuvo now, should not be allowed. You can install them yourself, however I strongly advise against it.
Some 10 years back or so I went through all my old physical and disc imaged all of them. Then I got a cracked exe for each, you can pick them up from various places but gamecopyworld is a good resource, make sure to virus scan with different virus scanners to be sure.
So the examples given are not windows compatability, but drm compatability issues, shows why drm is such a pain. To note, the future is streaming, so you won’t even have anything to crack regardless of what you run on.
Also, keep an eye on moddb and such like. Some great people write engine reimplements which both get rid of disc/drm needs and add features. Dhwem3 for doom3, gzdoom (a cracking product), scummvm, etc.
TBH since switching to win 10 I have only had M$ break one update which I had to rollback, otherwise I have found it to be the most compatible windows yet (close win7). With classic shell, windows shut up, geek uninstall and some other bits it’s pretty good.