Chances are, you're probably just need to visit pcgamingwiki to make these games work, without needing an obsolete (and vulnerable) Windows 10 version.

Windows 10 is very good at adapting to hardware changes so you can probably do a hard drive swap or apply your image to the other laptop
but its a bit messy for my taste (all the old hardware references will still exist in the background)

If it was me I'd find out which feature version of Windows the laptop has, e.g. 1809 and download that versions iso.
Assuming this laptop is just for offline gaming you can probably use slightly older versions as well as all that matters is the games work.
Plenty of tools exist to download specific versions of windows iso's eg https://tb.rg-adguard.net/public.php
It is just the iso though you or the laptop will still need to provide the licence activation.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2025-01-22, 03:02:

Chances are, you're probably just need to visit pcgamingwiki to make these games work, without needing an obsolete (and vulnerable) Windows 10 version.

Precisely.

I always wondered what are all these games that stop working after a Windows update. I feel like it's an extremely rare event, yet apparently it happens to multiple games.
Chances are it is some OS setting that got changed during the update, and can be changed back.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2025-01-22, 03:02:

Chances are, you're probably just need to visit pcgamingwiki to make these games work, without needing an obsolete (and vulnerable) Windows 10 version.

No, I've tried that already, with no success. Some of the games are modded, such as Carmageddon: Special Edition (a mod that merges both Carmageddon and it's expansion pak, The Splat Pack, and adds new content, too), and aren't covered by the base game's Wiki page.

chinny22 wrote on 2025-01-22, 04:02:

Windows 10 is very good at adapting to hardware changes so you can probably do a hard drive swap or apply your image to the other laptop
but its a bit messy for my taste (all the old hardware references will still exist in the background)

Isn't there a way to trim the old and redundant stuff from the [if I did it] now working installation on the second laptop?

If it was me I'd find out which feature version of Windows the laptop has, e.g. 1809 and download that versions iso. Assuming th […]
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If it was me I'd find out which feature version of Windows the laptop has, e.g. 1809 and download that versions iso.
Assuming this laptop is just for offline gaming you can probably use slightly older versions as well as all that matters is the games work.
Plenty of tools exist to download specific versions of windows iso's eg https://tb.rg-adguard.net/public.php
It is just the iso though you or the laptop will still need to provide the licence activation.

That sounds great, I might try that, thanks.

dr_st wrote on 2025-01-22, 06:07:

Precisely. […]
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The Serpent Rider wrote on 2025-01-22, 03:02:

Chances are, you're probably just need to visit pcgamingwiki to make these games work, without needing an obsolete (and vulnerable) Windows 10 version.

Precisely.

I always wondered what are all these games that stop working after a Windows update. I feel like it's an extremely rare event, yet apparently it happens to multiple games.
Chances are it is some OS setting that got changed during the update, and can be changed back.

There are several such games that I have experienced, mostly commercial, but a couple of fan-made mods, and all of them are either from the late 90's or very early 2000s. One is Carmageddon: Special Edition, another is a 3D pool/snooker game (I think it's Virtual Pool 3), I remember a Half-Life mod (which I think has custom code written for it, it's basically an Unreal Tournament type game in the Half-Life universe, it has bots, many multiplayer levels,etc). I can't remember the others, so they're probably either not too great anyway, or have been rendered largely obsolete by their own sequels (Virtual Pool 4 is better than Virtual Pool 3, for example, and has no compatibility issues). The only one I am really bothered about is Carmageddon: Special Edition, or I wouldn't care about the problem.

Windows being vulnerable if it's not updated isn't really a problem in this case, though. After all, to keep Windows from updating, I will keep the laptop offline, so the laptop can't get hacked, and I will keep Malwarebytes and a virus killer on there.

If that's the case, you might as well just install Windows 7.

The Serpent Rider wrote on 2025-01-22, 17:29:

If that's the case, you might as well just install Windows 7.

Now that is a good idea. Windows 7 is about the closest I ever got to actually liking a version of Windows.

Thanks for the suggestion!

Kerr Avon wrote on 2025-01-22, 15:05:

There are several such games that I have experienced, mostly commercial, but a couple of fan-made mods, and all of them are either from the late 90's or very early 2000s. One is Carmageddon: Special Edition, another is a 3D pool/snooker game (I think it's Virtual Pool 3), I remember a Half-Life mod (which I think has custom code written for it, it's basically an Unreal Tournament type game in the Half-Life universe, it has bots, many multiplayer levels,etc). I can't remember the others, so they're probably either not too great anyway, or have been rendered largely obsolete by their own sequels (Virtual Pool 4 is better than Virtual Pool 3, for example, and has no compatibility issues). The only one I am really bothered about is Carmageddon: Special Edition, or I wouldn't care about the problem.

Windows being vulnerable if it's not updated isn't really a problem in this case, though. After all, to keep Windows from updating, I will keep the laptop offline, so the laptop can't get hacked, and I will keep Malwarebytes and a virus killer on there.

If you are talking about this, REMOVED I have tested it on the last version of Windows 10 (22H2) and it works perfectly. I just downloaded "Carmageddon Special Edition v1.4 + Meld Pack v1.3.5", extracted it and launched CARMA95.EXE. This pack is using the CnC-DDraw wrapper, maybe that is giving you troubles, you can try with dgVoodoo or DDrawCompat instead.

And about Virtual Pool 3 (the downloadable 3.3.1.1 version is what I tested), this is a very interesting one. The game worked fine until Windows 10 1607, since 1703 it stopped working. I spent a while debugging it, as this a game a like a lot. The funny part is that the game itself works fine, what makes the process crash upon launch is a call to the function that takes care of the online registration. Patching the executable to remove it makes the game launch and works fine (dgVoodoo may be required). It is not very straight forward, as the executable is packed with EXECryptor, and must be unpacked first (this is all I can tell about this, sorry).