Did Bethesda add the Galaxy dll, or did GOG?

Related:
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/provide_disk_images_of_original_install_media
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/please_keep_up_windows_xp_compatibility_for_dos_and_xp_games

As I've stated there, I'm just waiting for the file change.

My Fallout 3 GOTY retail has no online-checks and not even Disc-checks, at least not when I run it with the Fallout Mod Manager, never loaded it any other way.
But even if it wouldn't be the case with some game
1. Having the original files would make repairing the damage that has been done by client integrations easier.
2. Some games (like the above btw) just come with common cracks that have just been virus checked and integrated. You can find those in the net yourself anyway.

Given that the game apparently load GalaxyWrp instead of Steam_api it means that somebody changed it in the code, it's incredibly unlikely that Gog had access to the source code to do this change themselves... so who is remaining ?

What are we supposed to use then? Any M$ malware...er..I mean "OS" post-XP can't be trusted and is an insulting joke.

Game developers need to make their games for Linux/Ubuntu and ditch Windows.

I use Ubuntu, but I keep WinXP installed to play games on.

Well if really you use WinXP in full offline mode, you could perfectly do the same with Windows 7 or even 10 without having to worry about any unholy telemetry or impious updates.

Can you say d-l-l_i-n-j-e-c-t-i-o-n?

https://www.google.com/search?q=resistance+to+change&oq=resistance+to+change&ie=UTF-8

I like change where it's due, that's why I switched to Linux, unfortunately too many people like you are still resistant to change and therefore many games are still made with only Windows in mind. ;)
That's one of many reasons why most new AAA games aren't for me.

We're talking about old games from an era when Linux gaming wasn't a thing yet though and it shouldn't be too much to ask for them to not break compatibility to the OS they were made for. Unfortunately you have to gather information from the community or try it yourself (without the refund system that Steam has) to know anything about it since support is even dropped in games that run perfectly fine.

I still use Amiga, but I don't demand / expect gOg to to provide AmigaOS support. It is my choice for using an outdated (though arguably better) OS. if you lot want to use XP, that's fine and more power to you, but don't expect anyone to support it.

I do use Linux. Just having done tech support I have a grudge against people that cling to ancient OS's come hell or high-water, especially when some shit can be done reasonably through wrappers or virtual machines.

If you use linux you can run fallout 3, new vegas, oblivion etc... gog version on wine, you don't need win xp support.
I still keep a windows xp virtual machine for the longest journey and asterix & obelix xxl2... and I could play the longest journey on win 10 (just without the "Yes" and "No" exit menu), but you don't actually need a native installation to play old games that only work on XP.

so that was just a "panic mode in advance" because of a change that you think might come ?
maybe we can just chill a bit and wait until things actually break ... ;)

what about the other games on your list?
are these actually broken on WinXP or do you just think GOG might break XP support at some point ?
A list of the former might be helpful, a list of the latter not so much :p

as far as I understand Fallout:New Vegas is actually broken because Bethesda updated the game to support Achievements (which means linking against Galaxy.dll, which doesn't work on XP).
I assume the same goes for Rebel Galaxy since it also supports achievements.

But none of the other games support Achievements ...
I am pretty sure support for cloud saves doesn't require any code changes, so games that support it shouldn't bring in Galaxy.dll.

Thanks Klumpen0815 for the list.

I think there has been a lot of misunderstanding here and it's sensible to an extent.

The problem is not that GOG is dropping Windows XP support as a customer service, which is sensible and acceptable. What they have done in New Vegas and since their Galaxy wrappers are not XP compatible they will do again is making games that originally have tested and work on XP useless on their original target system.

Galaxy is meant to be optional(???), which doesn't fit with all this. We don't write about executables, which need patching to make them playable to newer Windows versions, but for an unnecessary, not originally related to the games dependency.

Klumpen0815's list shows just that. The games run on XP by default.

A few more things I'd like to note.

All users who have followed the Windows upgrades until now are not affected. On the other hand, consider how secure is the option to support GOG on breaking working software for external (optional?) dependencies (Vista EOL is imminent and 7 will come in 2020).

I think that users have their own reasons to upgrade or not their Windows systems. It's out of question and a totally different subject than the one in this thread. There could be some reasons spreading from just ethical to lack of hardware and software support to even financial.

Also not all games run (at an acceptable performance level or at all) on Wine and it's a different subject too.

Finally, there is no need to have access to source code in order to make changes or inject dependencies to an executable.
Hint: Malware may alter many things on Windows without source code access.

In this specific case we have dll injection. Interested users may find more on this and references about it here.

Excuse me for the long post.

Excuse you? How about a hug and +1? ;p

Very informative post, and much appreciated.

About Rebel Galaxy: it was actively brought back into WinXP area by its developer as it didn't work at first.
More info here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/290300/discussions/1/483368433105112578/