The Happy Friar: does it show an error screen or something else when it doesn't launch?
ErraticNukeman: no, it shows literally nothing.
A few things I've tried with various games and it helped:
- Make sure in your security settings in Windows that DEP is turned off for non-native windows processes.
This prevented me from launching Blood II and Unreal Gold.
- If you have a 120Hz monitor (or anything above 60Hz), try downloading CRU (Custom Resolution Utility) and add a 60Hz profile to your monitor, before that I couldn't run Lego Star Wars: Complete Saga and Deus Ex Invisible War would hang at the loading screen when starting the game proper (after choosing my character's face and difficulty).
Also try the widescreen fix, maybe the game dies trying to set the resolution.