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Comment by StillBored | Hacker News Reader

This is the first time I've heard running windows in an internet restricted sense as a "dark island" but I like it.

I've been doing something similar for quite a while, by default blocking windows machines from having internet access, except for a tiny subset of programs. A dark island with a boat dock if you will.

Turns out its a real PITA with "modern software" much of which can't even install itself without internet access and programs that actually provide self contained installers becoming fewer and fewer.

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Yep. GOG is one of the few places you can get old school offline installers for new and old games.

https://www.gog.com/

GoG is really great, especially sice old games are patched and working to modern Windows systems usually.

They have some good sales going now too.

Definitely. I've been on the Dark Island for about 6-12 months now and been loving it. You definitely need to be more conscious of the apps you use and all of that (Which I already have been for like a decade at this point through the use of Linux and FreeBSD, and using more open source apps - although I still use proprietary stuff if necessary). But once you are conscious about the apps, then going offline is not as difficult. You'll know what apps you can and can't live without, what apps work without internet or not, and workarounds that can be used with certain applications. You'll also know what offline installers and other setups you'll need to back up. For example, since I've gone dark, but I still want to continue working on Cactus even after Windows 10's EOL, I've downloaded the entire Visual Studio 2022 Community Edition archive, and can install everything completely in an offline environment.

I wonder if his Dark Island Strategy would also work for lan-multiplayer, or maybe even steam-multiplayer (maybe via steamemu?). Maybe it's enough to setup some good firewall rules before starting.

It would work for lan gaming since you are within your network, but not for Steam since Steam essentially is a form of DRM and you'll need to "check in" eventually. I know Steamworks is their actual DRM library and that developers can decide if they want to use it or not, but Steam essentially made DRM flourish in the industry. As much as I love Valve and the games they've made early on, they definitely have hurt the industry in this respect.

I like the idea presented it the post in theory but it seems basically impossible if you want to play anything modern. Driver updates, day one patches, etc etc.

However, since I literally only use my Windows system for gaming I don't really care what (additional) hell Microsoft puts it through over the years. Even being forced to have some sort of account, etc, as long as I can just play games without it being too much of a hassle.

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