I've officially Gone Dark on Windows! I was going to wait till after Windows 10 went End of Life on October 14, 2025, but there is nothing stopping me from doing this today and improving my quality of life immediately, and it also helps me make sure that I have time to back up any files I need to live this lifestyle post EOL.
You can read my post here for a deep look about the methodology and philosophy behind it.
Going Dark in Windows - An Offline Single Player DRM Free Gaming PC without Internet Connection, Only LAN.
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fearedbliss
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Re: Going Dark in Windows - An Offline Single Player DRM Free Gaming PC without Internet Connection, Only LAN.
Bravo @fearedbliss!
Q: Since I enjoy some occasional multiplayer via TCP/IP -- do you know if it's possible to "go dark", while simultaneously keeping specific ports open for gaming, such as TCP 4000 for LoD?
I am a networking noob
Q: Since I enjoy some occasional multiplayer via TCP/IP -- do you know if it's possible to "go dark", while simultaneously keeping specific ports open for gaming, such as TCP 4000 for LoD?
I am a networking noob
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fearedbliss
- Site Admin
- Posts: 648
- Joined: Sun Dec 19, 2021 11:23 am
Re: Going Dark in Windows - An Offline Single Player DRM Free Gaming PC without Internet Connection, Only LAN.
Haha I'm not that much better at networking 
. At the moment I don't think so because the primary network adapter is basically intentionally "misconfigured" to not be able to reach out into the internet directly. There's probably some more complicated way to get the desired effect though. I'm actually going to be setting up a VirtualBox VM on Windows and see if I could use a bridge adapter inside of the VM with the correct settings. Maybe that could be way to browse the web from within the VM but not affect the host. Although if the bridge depends on a correctly configured host network adapter, then it wouldn't work, but if the VM adapter can function independently, that could be a way to get internet. However in that case I probably wouldn't want to use a bridged adapter since I don't actually want the guest VM to reach the host (security reasons if anything). If the VM could reach out, then technically you could LAN from within by giving the guest its own IP on your network and then doing the normal port forwarding, but then you are limited to the VM graphics performance. If I figure anything out I'll let you know. But I'm trying to get used to living in that offline machine with no internet. I already figured out a solution for some games asking .NET 3.5, but also ran into the issue where the .NET 3.5 Offline Installer was asking that it needs . NET 3.5 lol.. then it wants to connect to the internet to fix it.. nah chill.
. At the moment I don't think so because the primary network adapter is basically intentionally "misconfigured" to not be able to reach out into the internet directly. There's probably some more complicated way to get the desired effect though. I'm actually going to be setting up a VirtualBox VM on Windows and see if I could use a bridge adapter inside of the VM with the correct settings. Maybe that could be way to browse the web from within the VM but not affect the host. Although if the bridge depends on a correctly configured host network adapter, then it wouldn't work, but if the VM adapter can function independently, that could be a way to get internet. However in that case I probably wouldn't want to use a bridged adapter since I don't actually want the guest VM to reach the host (security reasons if anything). If the VM could reach out, then technically you could LAN from within by giving the guest its own IP on your network and then doing the normal port forwarding, but then you are limited to the VM graphics performance. If I figure anything out I'll let you know. But I'm trying to get used to living in that offline machine with no internet. I already figured out a solution for some games asking .NET 3.5, but also ran into the issue where the .NET 3.5 Offline Installer was asking that it needs . NET 3.5 lol.. then it wants to connect to the internet to fix it.. nah chill.