As I've said before, I know what I know, and know there is more to learn, so...

1) What purpose to these Windows VCR++ redistributable (have I even got that right?) things do? I tend to see them as assets or programming shorthand that the game can access from time to time to save developers some time but I expect I am wrong.

2) Over the past couple of years I have noticed when using the Offline installers (no Galaxy here), that near the end of the installation there is a message replacing the "Installing.." notice with "downloading / installing VCR Redistributable 2017" or something similar. But on my most recent purchase, Stellar Tactics, this didn't happen and I had to go find it myself. Why would it not have done this itself during installation as it usually does? Do GOG put this command in the installer usually and forgot this time (when installation reaches x go find this redist)?

See, I know stuff but not much really. Oh and try to reply in words that an old fogey can follow :-)

Here is a technical explanation:

Consider the following Hello World C program:

#include<stdio.h>

int main(void)
{
printf("Hello World!\n");
return 0;
}

As you can see, this is a basic Hello World. However, you will notice that it calls a function called printf(). In order to call a function in C, the following needs to happen:
* The function needs to be declared (the declaration is called a "prototype" in C and C++). In the example above, the prototype for printf() is found in the stdio.h file that is shipped with the compiler, and included by the program (that's what the #inclide line is for).
* The function needs to actually exist somewhere. That is, the C compiler (or, more precisely, the linker) must be able to find the code for printf(), so that it can link it to your program. On modern systems, this is usually done via dynamic linking, where the program loader finds the dynamic libraries the program depends on, loads them into the address space of the process, and then fixes the references in the compiled program to point to the libraries. (If you've ever seen a .DLL file, that's a Windows dynamic library.)

The redistributable contains the dynamic libraries that the Windows program depends on to run (so, in the example I gave, it contains the .DLL file that has printf() (or at least I assume it does)). It's called a redistributable because it is distributed under license terms that allow third parties (that is, users other than Microsoft) to legally redistribute it. (There's a similar situation with glibc on GNU/Linux systems; the license for glibc allows it to be linked to proprietary or otherwise GPL-incompatible code.)

Does this help? If you have any questions about this explanation (for example, if you don't understand some of the terminology), feel free to ask. It's also possible that the installer found the needed libraries on your system already and decided not to waste resources downloading an extra copy. One advantage of dynamic linking is that multiple programs can use the same copy of the library, and therefore the library doesn't need to be installed a second time.

If you're ever in doubt about this stuff, one great website resource is Sereby who provide an automated All-In-One download of pretty much every common "redist" that's needed for 20 years of games, including all the VC++ (2005-2019), .NET frameworks, Flash, Shockwave & Silverlight, etc. It installs them all by default though you can manually select which ones if needed. Just click Downloads, "All in One Runtimes" then Download (it's verified clean for malware / viruses, etc):-

https://www.sereby.org/site/All%20in%20One%20Runtimes&amp;lang=en

Thanks you to each of you. Geralt gets the solution as he? needs the points!

In reply to Geralt and dtgreene... The required runtime wasn't already on my system as I had an error message when the game (Stellar Tactics) fired up. That would have thrown me if hadn't found the solution, and specific link, in the game forum. Even then I was wary of getting something wrong. It works fine now, no error message, so I was curious to try and understand more.

I often think, "I wish I was as clever as you." But then it occurs to me that on a another subject people could say the same to me.

AB2012...I've made a note of your link, thank you. Though I do remember that Flash was supposed to avoided because of vulnerabilities several years ago? Still, as you pointed out, I could manually deselect it.

Anyway, Thank you again.

Yes, 'he' is correct. :-)

When you get an error message because of a missing dll then you didn't have the required runtime and it wasn't installed. That's something you should really tell GOG support about.

I'd advise against using such bundles though. Even if they are benign (in other words: really made to help make installation easier and not bundled with hidden malware) they are usually horribly out of date. Not only flash, even the VC++ runtimes can have bugs that can either lead to crashes or vulnerabilities. That's why they receive updates as well.

If you find that you are missing a certain runtime you should only download and install that specific runtime and you should always get the latest version straight from the source.

Getting to a source can be a problem and then finding a offline installer package is worse. and with windows 7 being shelved.

Most dependencies are from Microsoft and while I do agree that the offline installers are sometimes difficult to find on their site they do exist and Google can help you find them.