I just bought the game this evening and downloaded it through GOG Galaxy. This is my first GOG game I've bought so maybe part of this issue is due to my inexperience with the platform but I'll summarize what's going on nonetheless.

When I try to launch the game, it shows up in the taskbar for a few seconds before disappearing. It seems to crash as soon as the game is supposed to start. I tried applying compatibility settings to the shortcut for the game as well as both the carma2_hw.exe and carma2_sw.exe, but no compatibility settings I enabled did the trick.

I then looked to see if anyone else had the same problem online, and some threads I saw on Steam's support forums recommended moving the winmm.dll and wsock32.dll files out of the game's directory for users running Windows 7 and up. Unfortunately, doing so didn't seem to fix anything either.

I have nGlide already installed on my PC that I've used for a few other games, and I know the GOG version of this game comes with its own version of nGlide preinstalled, so maybe there's a conflict there? I'm not entirely sure what to do at this point really.

I didn't find any other potential fixes online beyond just moving the dll files out of the game's folder. It seemed to do the trick for those people on Steam but it didn't work on my end. Anything else I can try? I've attached a screenshot of my system specs as well in case that helps.

I got the problem fixed, so there isn't much need for replying to this post anymore, but I figure I may as well post the solution in case anyone else runs into this issue in the future and needs it fixed too. I can't post a link to the support page its on, but if you search 'game not launching windows 8' on the support search page it should be the first result.

Basically, Carmageddon 2 will crash upon launching the game with modern controllers plugged into your PC. If they're too modern of a controller and show up in your Devices and Printers window under the Control Panel, the game will instantly crash. You'll either need to unplug the controller and use the keyboard to play or use a controller compatible with older games such as the Logitech Gamepad F310 which I ended up using that I had lying around.

Unfortunately, for controllers such as an Xbox 360 controller and other newer ones that use similar drivers for more modern PC games, these will not work with Carmageddon 2 and will crash the game upon launching. In my case, I was using a Wii U Pro Controller with a program called WiinUPro which made the controller emulate an Xbox 360 controller when I experienced the game crashing.

I couldn't find any work around unfortunately, even using the dinput8.dll linked on that support page didn't fix the crash. If you want to play the game with a controller and don't own one that works with the game, the aforementioned F310 controller from Logitech works fine and is pretty cheap.

Also, if you want the game's music to play and you're running Windows 10 like me, you'll need to use the following solution. I found it on another post here on the Carmageddon support forum, but I figure I may as well summarize it here in case you have the problem too.

Renaming the game's .exe or copying it and renaming the copy will do the trick. You can rename it to anything, personally I renamed it to carma2_musicfix.exe, but anything other than carma2_hw.exe works. Just make sure you launch the renamed or copied .exe instead of the normal carma2_hw.exe. Not sure why this works, but hey, it does the trick. Anyways, I hope these fixes help you if you run into these problems like I did.

Thanks, man. As ridiculous as it seems, renaming the .exe worked for me