Picture this: you've spent weeks reverse-engineering a 1998 survival horror game, stripped out the DRM, patched the executable to run on modern hardware, and finally got it booting clean. Then Microsoft ships a Windows 11 preview update and something quietly breaks. Again.
That's the day-to-day reality for Michał Obuchowski, GOG's publishing technical manager, who recently opened up about just how much of a moving target Windows 11 has become for anyone trying to keep classic games alive.
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Windows Hello is now in the way of your old games
Here's the thing: the specific change causing the most friction right now isn't a bug. It's a deliberate security improvement. Microsoft is overhauling how elevation works in Windows 11, replacing the familiar UAC prompt (the "click Yes to continue" dialog that's been part of Windows since Vista) with something called Administrator Protection. The new system spins up a hidden, temporary admin account and issues a short-lived token gated behind Windows Hello authentication.
For everyday users, that's a more secure workflow. For a game released in 1998 that expects to quietly grab elevated permissions the old way, it's a wall.
"It's a reasonable security move, but for us it changes how a game asks for the permissions it needs," Obuchowski explains. "And the catch is you don't really know what actually changed until Microsoft ships a preview."
That last part is what makes the job genuinely difficult. The GOG team can't anticipate every permission-handling edge case in a 25-year-old executable until the new Windows behavior is already live. At that point, the game is broken in the wild and the fix has to come after the fact.
DirectShow regressions and 30 years of Windows baggage
The Administrator Protection change is just one piece of a larger picture. DirectShow, Microsoft's aging multimedia framework that many classic games relied on for video playback, suffered a regression in newer Windows 11 builds that caused in-game cutscenes and FMV sequences to break in what Obuchowski diplomatically calls "spectacular ways."
Legacy drivers and old copy-protection schemes round out the list of recurring headaches. The copy-protection angle is particularly thorny because some DRM systems from the late 1990s and early 2000s are deeply embedded in how the original executables function. Removing them cleanly, without breaking something else, is painstaking work, which is exactly why GOG's DRM-free model matters so much here.
"The further Windows travels from its roots, the more 30-year-old baggage it drags along," Obuchowski says. "Every time a piece of it gets retired, something from 1998 can stop booting."
That's not hyperbole. It's a straightforward description of how software entropy works at scale.
What GOG has actually managed to pull off
Context matters here. The team complaining about these obstacles has also done genuinely impressive work against them. GOG's catalog includes obscure titles like Ecstatica and Clive Barker's Undying, games that had no realistic path to modern playability without serious technical intervention. The original Resident Evil trilogy is now preserved and purchasable on the platform, original executables intact.
Each of those releases required navigating exactly the kind of compatibility maze Obuchowski is describing. Old DirectX versions, broken audio drivers, installer logic that assumes a file system structure Windows hasn't used in decades. The GOG preservation work isn't just repackaging old installers and calling it done.
For players who care about games like the original Gothic surviving long enough for new audiences to experience them alongside modern entries (if you're curious how the series has evolved, the Gothic 1 Remake everything you need to know guide covers exactly what changed from the 2001 original), this kind of technical groundwork is what makes that possible.
The bigger picture for game preservation right now
The timing of Obuchowski's comments is worth noting. Game preservation is under pressure from multiple directions simultaneously. Sony is ending physical disc production for new PlayStation games in 2028. Publishers like Square Enix have stopped short of guaranteeing their back catalogs will remain playable indefinitely. The Video Game History Foundation has pushed back hard on the idea that digital downloads alone solve the preservation problem.
GOG's position in this conversation is unusual. The platform has a commercial incentive to keep old games running (people buy them), which aligns neatly with the preservation goal in a way that doesn't always happen with platform holders or publishers. The frustration Obuchowski is expressing isn't abstract advocacy. It's a technical team describing the actual cost of doing this work.
The practical takeaway for players is straightforward: buying classic games through platforms that actively maintain compatibility is one of the more direct ways to support this work continuing. If you want a broader look at what's available, the gaming guides hub covers a range of classic and modern titles worth revisiting. And if you're jumping into any of those preserved classics for the first time, surviving your first hours in Gothic 1 Remake is a solid starting point for understanding how much these old-school designs differ from modern games.
