Well, to use the patches that are being provided here, you'd need to have been up to date when the launchpad was modded in such a way that it stopped working on XP. Assuming that's true, you just go back to the first drop of patch files, and install them in order from oldest to newest. (note: It's possible that all you need to do is install yesterday's patch...some of the messages I've seen seem to imply that the patch file linked above is cumulative since the start of all of these shenanigans) Once that's done, rather than starting EQ using the launchpad, you modify your EQ shortcut, and in the "target" text box, replace "launchpad.exe" with "eqgame.exe patchme". EQ should come up at the login screen you were accustomed to seeing before the launchpad was a thing. Oh, and I'll tell you why people would choose to keep using a 10 year old OS: Because the Windows 8 and 10 desktop UIs are fugly and the OSes themselves are invasive, and Windows 7 is so close to going EOS that it's not worth it to endure the pain of migrating to it (note: not upgrading...migrating) for the few months that it would buy. Just sayin'.
I know they did. The point is, the OS isn't supported anymore. No one should be running it anymore. It's only a matter of time before another WannaCry comes along that's better organized than this and affects far more machines.
"Thinks they are smart by using XP...but not smart enough to buy a $50 HDD and put Win8/10 on it, with only EQ loaded on the drive...so they can play EQ and not get spied on.." I have a $60 SSD with win10 + eq and thats it...everything else I do on Linux....
Yes, it is cumulative since April patch, next one I do will be starting a second cumulative since the current is 290mb. I included a simple batch file that does eqgame.exe patchme. I will be uploading a complete install of current EQ build in rar format..but that's 10gb. I was thinking of moving to a BitTorrent install client, but my upload and time isn't enough for doing this, as it is I have no time to make the install look fancy lol. All it will take is a change to dx9 client and it will break EQ for winxp, if they do that anytime soon, EQ will be dead for XP/Vista for good. Even WoW has said bye bye, so everquest is one of the last MMOs that work on XP/vista
Unfortunately, the truth is you could play WoW on XP/Vista longer than you could play EQ on XP/Vista. Blizzard announced dropping support for awhile, but it was still completely playable, until sometime this month I believe. There are several older MMOs that still work on XP, probably more notable would be Ultima Online.
