Just purchased Divine Divinity from GOG today, but much to my dismay it won't run. When I double-click the shortcut (or div.exe in the install directory) I get a black screen and an error message in the background titled "Error" with a descriptive message of "8". See attached screenshot.
Apparently I'm not the only one with this problem; others reported similar issues back in December. There was no apparent resolution, though there were numerous fixes listed. I tried all of these to no avail.
Any thoughts, please post. This is my first purchasing experience with GOG, and it's been a real headache thus far.

On Vista / Win 7 you must right click the setup.exe and click "Run as an administrator" from the resulting dialog. Both OS's tend to block some disk writes if you simply double click the setup.exe. If you did not install as an admin, you may want to reinstall.
You should right-click the game shortcut, click Properties, click Compatibility tab and check mark "Run this program as an administrator", also uncheck the "Run this program in compatibility mode for" to begin with only trying the compatibility modes if necessary.
Some folks have had to install in a directory outside of Program Files since UAC can cause trouble with some games. As a last resort, you may want to create a directory like C:\Games and install the game there. If you decide to try this, make sure you uninstall the existing game first since there could be registry conflicts. Hope this helps . . .=)
Edit: Error 8 can result from low disk space or bad or failing RAM. Check your available disk space, double-click My Computer, right click C drive, click Properties and note the available disk space.

Yep, I've done all of these. So far I've reinstalled about 5 times.
Most recent install:
1) Disabled UAC (was already disabled)
2) Installed to C:\DD by right-clicking setup -> "Run as Administrator"
3) Right-click div.exe, check box for "Run as Administrator"
I've also tried removing "read-only" from the installation directory and all files within. I've also tried the various compatibility modes. I've also tried setting /affinity 1. I don't have any more ideas, but hopefully someone here does.

Sorry, I was adding an edit.. Also check your memory as that has been known to give Error 8 as well
From Windows 7 Start Menu
* Click the Windows 7 Start button, type memory, and click on Windows Memory Diagnostic
* When the Windows Memory Diagnostic screen loads, click Restart now and check for problems
* You computer will restart
* The memory diagnostic will run and may take some time
* Windows will restart and report any errors to you
You might try setting the Affinity using RunFirst, see this post for more details. I have not been able to find a fix for the Error 8 problem so I am suggesting possible fixes. I would send a help ticket to GOG support as this needs to be resolved . . .=)
Just to cover all bases, also try unchecking "Run as an admin" for the div.exe and checking it in the game shortcut. I assume you have the latest video drivers installed so I won't sugget that . . .=)

Unfortunately, the Activeplus.com domain name expired on the 5th of March, and every "free download" website I've found so far (Brothersoft, etc) just links back to activeplus.com, which is now dead. So RunFirst is no go, unless you can link me a live copy.
I've got 100GB free on the HD, so I'll run a memtest. Meanwhile, I'll open a help ticket. I'm going to be gone for the next week, but I'll keep this thread updated with status as I am able.
Thanks for the suggestions, Stuff.

Sorry I couldn't help, you have already set the Affinity manually so RunFirst would not help.
Look at this post for another possible fix, long shot but worth a try until the Error 8 is resolved . . .=)

Received a response from Support today instructing me to uninstall+reinstall to a basic location "e.g. C:\DD" and ensure that I have the latest DirectX. The support representative clearly didn't read this thread, though I linked to it with the explicit statement that it contained the full details of my problem.
Sent a response back, and still hopeful. Will post the solution if we get there!

The website is up & running now.
http://www.activeplus.com/Products/RunFirst

New response from support: the error is Windows 7 specific, and Windows 7 isn't supported by GOG at this time.
Hopefully they'll add support soon! Otherwise it looks like reinstalling a supported OS is the only "solution" at this time. I'll probably set up a VM (or maybe a dual-boot) with XP 32-bit.

I have been looking for a solution for the Error 8 problem for months. GOG has made no secret of the fact that their games are not supported on Win 7. I am thinking it may be a hardware induced problem since some Win 7 installs run GOG games, some don't.
Lots of work for you but it is a fun game . . .unique in many ways . . . =)
Edit : I am surprised more Win 7 community members have not added their comments concerning this problem.

I just installed Beyond Divinity, and it's working great!
I hope GOG support and/or Larian Studios can track down and fix Error 8 for Divine Divinity. I'm definitely regretting dropping $6 on a game that I can't play.

I wish I would have read this post before last night because I bought it and am receiving the same error for this problem which is quite annoying. As I recall, the page for Divine Divinity states that it supports Windows 7 so I don't know what the problem is. I've tried everything you have and still no fix.

One reason for the error may be that you're not allowing the installation to make changes during installation. For my Windows 7 64 bit installation, I ran the installer and clicked on Yes when the installation asked if I wanted to allow the installer to make changes. No need on my part to 'run as administrator'.

did you by any chance play any game using the infinity engine recently? if you had turned off direct draw hardware acceleration to get one of those games to work it may be causing the problem. i got the same error message a while back and turning the acceleration back on fixed it for me.

I found a way to fix this problem is to use the old Divine Divinity Config tool that is posted somewhere in one of the GOG DD posts I cannot remember exactly where.

What you do is you save the new configtool to your desktop or somewhere, put the old config tool in your folder and run it and instead of having the game use direct3d you choose directdraw. This will cause some graphic issues like a trailing mouse in some places, but it beats the hell out of the game not working. Once you switch it to direct draw drop the newer configtool back into your folder switch to your preferred resolution and voila that's how I fixed my error 8 message. This method seems to work for a lot of DD problems in terms of crashing at bootup.