Fallout 3 works fine on XP. Post the errors that you receive.

I don't deny that it does, My issue is basically I just can't install it because everything I find is either for 64bit or packaged with Steam and won't run. I don't have an install of the game that installs on 32bit XP

Why? Is it only because you don't want to learn to use anything newer, or what?

To me it would seem impractical to cling to some old OS or hardware like that, because Windows XP can't really be installed on modern PCs, and those old PCs of yours that are running XP now, will eventually die too. There is just no way around it, no piece of hardware, especially electronics, lasts forever. The capacitors will swell and/or dry out, etc.

I sure was heartbroken when my former gaming laptop, ASUS G75VW, finally broke down after about 9 years of active service. I had decided to keep it as my dedicated Windows 7 PC, but eventually I lost it because for some reason neither Windows nor Linux can detect its GPU anymore. So I can still kinda run it without GPU acceleration, but it is pretty much unusable as it is.

Oh well, I replaced it with a Lenovo Legion 5 Pro gaming laptop (with Windows 10, which I replaced with Windows 11 + Linux Mint), I hope it will last with me another 9 years.

This is why I am more interested in emulators and such, which don't care that much on what hardware I am running them, or even the OS (Windows or Linux, for example). They allow me to play old games on modern machines, and I don't have to rely on my 20 old PCs still working.

Frankly, nowadays if and when I fire up my 20 year old desktop PC, or that IBM ThinkPad T41 laptop, both running Windows XP and Windows 98SE, I am kinda amazed they still boot up and work. I mean, I would expect that at least their hard drives would have failed already. I will not be surprised when the day comes that they don't boot up anymore, has happened to many other older retro-PCs I've had in the past, like that ASUS gaming laptop which is was much younger than either of those retro-PCs.

The original disc release was not a Steamworks game and I would assume ran on XP just fine. You could buy that used somewhere I guess. It had Games for Windows Live but it did not require online activation so you could just make an offline profile and ignore it.

I wouldn't consider Fallout 3 a real "retro PC" kind of game btw, but maybe that depends on your age I guess.

The original release had GFWL!? Man I've passed up 2 physical copies of that to go with the bare black version which doesn't actually state Steam anywhere on it. Okay... I will try that, Luckily they're super cheap here in Australia. Like 4 bucks a copy

Hi,

my Fallout 3 (original retail version) works fine on my Windows XP (32-bit). I never had connect this machine to the internet and there is no steam client installed. Maybe there is a different beween the german release and the release you use? Which release do you use? Austrailian, UK, US?

In the US it had GFWL that needed to be patched out.

If you want to remove it there's a very simple way to do so, but it doesn't NEED it to be removed. You can just make an offline profile and play, GFWL's death doesn't matter for playability.

Because I love Windows XP and it is still a good Operating System (OS) to me.

I can understand that well. Up until 6 years ago I used it exclusively alongside Linux. Then Windows 7 was added as a dual boot and I've had W10 on a new computer for 3 years.

But my old Core-2-Duo with 4 GB Ram and XP/W7 is still on standby next to my newer computer and I still play and work with it. XP was a good and fast OS, with some little tweaks. :-)
I can confirm that.

If your issue is installation then install the game on a newer OS and then copy the files over to the XP machine.
Then troubleshoot from there.
If you continue to be vague the likelihood of anyone being able to help is going to be pretty low.

Even if it runs on XP, wouldn't it be more of a game from the Vista/7 era?
I know I'm not being very helpful, but if I had different computers/OS's to play older games on, I think I'd pick the one with Windows 7, not XP.

Best I can do for you since I don't have a Steam or GOG version of Fallout 3 (I don't buy games I already purchased). Bethesda really should have released a patch for the retail ver to remove GFWL.

For Fallout 3 that came on DVD

1. Install from media (You can do this on XP or on a newer version of Windows)
2. Patch to v1.7 (You need to do this since it removes copy protection from the launcher otherwise you'll have to hunt down a crack )
3. Try the launcher, If the launcher doesn't recognize that your game is installed you'll need to make sure the registry is correct.
a. 32bit windows Copy the following into a .reg file import with regedit /s. Edit with your installed location.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Bethesda Softworks\Fallout3]
"Installed Path"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Bethesda Softworks\\Fallout 3\\"

b. 64bit windows Copy the following into a .reg file import with regedit /s. Edit with your installed location.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Bethesda Softworks\Fallout3]
"Installed Path"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Bethesda Softworks\\Fallout 3\\"

4. Download xliveless and place the config file and .dll in the game directory so you don't have to install GFWL

5. In the "Fallout_default file in the game directory make the following changes:

bUseThreadedAI=1
iNumHWThreads=2

6. The above was tested on Windows XP.

7. If you want newer Fallout 3 executables (they remove the GFWL requirement) then they may not work on Windows XP.
For instance the the idiot that compiled the Epic version of Fallout 3 compiled the Fallout executables with a newer version of Visual Studio which does not work on Windows XP and requires additions VS .dlls.
It's likely that the GOG and Steam executables work fine as long as steamless is used to remove the Steam requirement from the Steam version. For instance the Steam version of Fallout New Vegas works fine on XP.

You can also try this but I've never tested it (Unknown if it removes GFWL if you are already at 1.7.03):https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/24913

/EDIT v1.7.0.4 Steam ver requires Vista or above. The v1.7.0.3 Steam ver should be fine.
Assuming GOG version is 1.7.0.3 then should be XP compatible
Note that any ver that has v1.7.0.4 can just swap out the executables with the v1.7.0.3 ones to be compatible.
// The Anniversary patcher just uses xdelta to revert to the previous executable version as well as the additional tweaks so nothing special but it will give you a v1.7.0.3 executable that doesn't require xliveless to disable GFWL
///So assuming GOG is at v1.7.0.3, if they do "upgrade" to v1.7.0.4 then they need to make sure that the executables are compiled with at the most VS2017, if they don't care then the bare minimum they should do is have the v1.7.0.3 executables in addition to the v1.7.0.4 executables especially for mods.
////Newer versions TTW are supposedly incompatible with XP due to 3rd party addons being incompatibles so for those wanting to run it would either have to use an old ver of TTW or seing if those addons can be earlier versions or swapped out.
/////If the GOG version requires GOG galaxy then the GOG galaxy .dll requires Vista so you'll still need to swap out executables with or use the patcher.

Not exactly GOG's target audience. ;)