Getting things out from those installers isn't a problem, you can use tools like Innoextract.
http://constexpr.org/innoextract/

The problem will be if the installer actually tries to interact deeply with the OS, like changing some registry values or something.

Games which can be run with third party software, like DOSbox, ScummVM, or something else won't be a problem, but other games can be problematic. Even if you can get stuff out of that Cyberpunk 2077 installer 10-20 years from now, is there anything you can do with it?

I do not have the same level of technical knowledge as you..I am just thinking of how I read Windows blocks something like Securom. I disagree with your last sentence's assessment as it seems to me that they would not block EXE files across the board whereas a dll file like this could be blocked in theory if it directly corresponds to something like an old online client that is blocked for whatever reason (like a security vulnerability). Obviously since we can't tell the future, we won't know whose guess is right, but it seems to me there's no true need on the customers' end for this stuff to be in the files if the customer is one who refuses Galaxy.

Microsoft didn't block Securom, what Microsoft blocked was the driver part of Securom because, like most drivers, it was running at a very low level and was a security risk, but if you have game using a Securom implementation that don't uses its driver then it will work perfectly fine under Windows 10 and most likely 11. Also they didn't block Flash despite what is said in the OP, Microsoft removed the bundled version of Flash, but if you installed it manually it was still working fine (unless the browser themselves blocked the plugin).

On the other side you have tons of dead applications / clients with tons of security issues and Microsoft never blocked any of them.

And even in the incredibly unlikely even that in the future Microsoft decide to block Galaxy, what they would block would be the client itself, as in preventing it to start, not some random DLL that is only there to communicate with Galaxy.

To address the elephant in the room, the dll is needed mostly because of achievements. Devs can't implement this Galaxy native functionality in a game unless they have the required interfaces available. Without doing a crash course on programming I can say this is simply how it works.

Could you do an intelligent hook for games to work even without the presence of a galaxy.dll file? Yeah, sure. And I'm certain some game developers already are. But other developers simply don't care much. Just like steam.dll it has become "part of the package". And I'll remind you that as there are games on GOG which ship with a steam.dll, there are also games on Steam which ship with a galaxy.dll.

I'm not happy about how these things are either, but it's a reality of the current game industry. GOG and its increasing focus on Galaxy is of course partly to blame, but so are game developers to some degree.

Can I just do an old man routine and say that back in the day the only achievements we had were those we kept track of in our minds, and we were quite happy about that? :P

Frankly, I never understood the desire to seek validation from gaming. I think whoever is doing it is setting the bar pretty low for themselves.

It's entertainment.

It's there to enrich your life by stimulating your mind, not be its centerpiece. You're supposed to seek validation from genuinely useful social achievements.

In my opinion, the only people who deserve validation in gaming are those who make the games or provide useful services around them (ie, professional reviewers, operators of game stores, etc).

As long as that dll just sits there and Galaxy is not running, and the game using it is not running with system or admin rights, it's no bigger risk that any other dll software is shipped with. A dll is not an executable file, it's just a bunch of code that can be used by other programs on the same machine. If malware somehow finds a way to abuse the galaxy.dll, your system was compromised in the first place.

Currently the presence of galaxy.dll in offline installers is just bloat. A sign of laziness.

Of course, if they ever built something like online auth into the dll the games check against - that'd be DRM just like Steam.

Thanks for the clarification, +1, that makes sense. I now think I understand your .exe analogy a bit better too.

Months ago an user complained about the lack of achievement in a game and I answered that it was not accurate, becuse the game offered achievements in game. He explained that he meant about the lack of "Galaxy" achievements.

In the majority of the cases people who wants achievements do mean about public achievements. Those kind of online trophies that are available to be shown for friends etc and that is managed under Galaxy or other clients.

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My personal opinion about achievements is irrelevant, What I mean is that your point of view is so restrictive and overprotective that I am surprised about how some of you dare to be connected to post in a forum for fear to possible security breaches or things like that. Or if you do some kind of debug and temporal quarantine in any game you install because nobody is able to know what is being installed in this app. Or if you are aware about the potential danger of using you money in internet in hypothetical cases.

I think that you are pushing things too far.
Now even the offline installers are suspicious because of a dll only active when you use a client you do not have installed?

Greetings