Thank you! This was exactly my problem. I tried all of the recommendations from GoG with no luck. I'm using a Logitech mouse and have SetPoint installed. Close SetPoint resolve my problems.
I'm running Windows 8.1 with a NVidia 660M, i7.
brunchero: I had the same crash-freeze problems and could resolve them on my windows 7 x64 with Radeon HD5770 (DX11), Core2Duo E8400.
Short story:
It was the
Logitech SetPoint Process, when I kill "SetPoint" the game starts properly.
I used the GL-version, which gave my the best results. Neither admin privileges nor any compatibility settings were necessary to play. (I use an unprivileged user with active UAC.)
Long story:
I used the admin user and msconfig as suggested in the troubleshooting tips* to perform a "clean reboot". Please BE CAREFUL there and know what you do. With startup items disabled, but all services still enabled, I was able to play the game already. After enabling the processes haphazardly and some reboots I finally found the SetPoint process being the showstopper. I went back to normal reboot and simply killed the process before launching the game, which was successful.
For launch tests make sure the task manager is closed, otherwise it will be frozen like the explorer and other opened applications. Launch it with ctrl-alt-del after a game crash and kill the game executable and the "
explorer" process, then on tab "
applications" click "
new task" and start a new "
explorer". That will fix the frozen desktop manager without a reboot.
*) Gog.com > Games Support > screamer_4x4 > Crashing in general