I have the steam version which is unplayable in its 'out of the box' form as it crashes every time I try to run it. Though I have heard that there are patches and workarounds.

Out of curiosity does the Gog version actually start out of the box (as it were)?

I've run the GOG version on both XP and Windows 7 with no trouble whatsoever.

You do???? When I try to run it it keeps crashing on me. I have Windows 7

GOG versions works fine, but you have to add it to the DEP exclusion list (control panel->system->advanced->performance->DEP exclusion).

You can try that basically for any game that crashes immediately, unfortunately didn't work on the Steam version

GoG version runs fine for me on Win7 64

I'll have to try that next time. ty for the info