Downshifting, Retro Gaming, and Windows 7 Nostalgia
27 July 2025
By a mix of fate and my own stubbornness, I ended up in a village — after fifteen years in big cities. Call it downshifting if you like; I'm fine with that. I’ve had enough of the hustle. Now I have a painfully slow and limited internet connection, a cozy house near the forest, a comfortable workspace, peace, and lots of free time.
I was listening to a familiar podcast and following Sasha’s blog. Lately, he's been into retro gaming — playing old games on authentic hardware. His posts are so vivid and fun that I remembered a dusty old dual-core laptop I had lying around with just 2GB of RAM. Time to give it a shot.
I dug it out from the far corner of my tech junk storage. Held it in my hands, recalled that it was still functional with Linux Mint installed. Plugged it in and hit the power button. It booted up just fine. I browsed through the folders, found nothing important, and plugged in a USB stick with Windows 7 Professional. The system installed without issues, booted up, and recognized all the hardware — no extra drivers needed.
As soon as Windows launched, a wave of nostalgia hit me. That settled it — I was going to revisit some old games.
To make things comfortable, I set up a dedicated gaming spot. Rearranged some furniture and placed the laptop, an extra monitor, and portable speakers on a table next to my main desk. It turned out just right. On the left of the keyboard, I could already picture a mug of tea from the Heroes of Might and Magic III merch store — and maybe some pasta with a meatball, right on the desk.
The first game I tried was Neverwinter Nights 2. I remembered starting it back in the day but never finishing. After the tutorial mission, though, I realized it wasn’t for me. Too chaotic. The party was hard to control, and combat was in real time. I wanted proper turn-based tactics, where you can take your time after the enemy’s move and plan your response. Real-time battles just don’t appeal to me. After 30 minutes, the game froze — maybe it was too heavy for the old laptop.
Next up was The Temple of Elemental Evil. I hadn’t heard of it before, but gamers seem to hold it in high regard. It’s slow-paced, a bit old-school. Lots of walking around, reading dialogue, managing gear and stats. That’s more my speed. So far I’ve played for about three hours and completed three small intro quests. I think I’ll keep going.
Feeling satisfied with my little gamer corner, I decided to give it some flair. Went to wallhaven.cc and spent a good half hour browsing wallpapers before downloading five that caught my eye. Picking wallpapers for a new desktop setup — that’s a pleasure all its own.
