I wanted to give it a shot today, I'll keep you updated.

I managed to run it by installing the game via windows 98 virtual machine, I guess there are more elegant ways but its simple and it works. Second need to run the game you need dxgl (https://www.dxgl.info/downloads/), install the program and configure it to apply to the dark earth executable, it should work.

I'm a bit confused. Did you need to install both the Win98 virtual machine and dxgl, or is it either/or?

Does the game support 3D graphics cards (e.g. Direct3D), or is it merely directdraw?

If all else fails, luckily I do have two old PCs which run even Windows 98SE.

You need windows 98 virtual machine only to install the game, just make sure you do it in a shared folder. Once you're done you don't need the virtual machine and you can install DXGL in Win 7-10. Apply it and run the game. It only supports direct draw, but DXGL makes it run flawlessly, be also sure to grab the 1.1 patch online.

The name does ring some bells. I haven't played it. Maybe from the old magazines I used to read back then.

I bought this game a few months ago, and dug my old desktop computer out of storage in order to play it. When I got to the point where you take the elevator down to the Lower Town, however, the game asked me to insert disk 2. As soon as I did so, it asked me to insert disk 1, and when I did that, the game crashed. I tried this repeatedly, always with the same results. Does anyone know a solution for this problem?

For those with the original CD's on hand, here is relatively easy way to get the game working in Windows 10 64 bit: Use Peixoto's Patch. Google the patch name combined with the Vogon's forum, apparently I'm not allowed to post links on this forum...

The patch sets off some antivirus alarms, due to the use of Auto Hotkey. However the 33 page thread on Vogon's alleviated my concerns, and I've installed it, and my laptop didn't explode. Still, not everybody will be comfortable running it.

Dark Earth runs great with this patch, with only some minor issues (screen transition effect not working). There are also some welcome enhancements included in the patch, like the XBR scaler, which improves the presentation.

It's a workable way of playing the game, while we wait for a GoG release.

25 years (+ 3 weeks) and this still hasn't got the digital re-release it is due, verdammt nochmal.