waltc: It doesn't sound as if you have really done very much to solve your problem, though.. First, what's your OS? Critically important. If you, like me, have Win8x64 installed then you need to run the Gog executable for the latest version of the game--2.xxx--I believe. Check your Gog game installer to make sure you aren't still running the 1.xxx installer version. If you are, then simply re-download the Gog install file and then reinstall the game...
That done, if you have Win8.1x64, once you've applied the grayface patch, and used MM7restool.exe, if you plan on using that mod, run
MM7setup.exe with the following compatibility mode options checked:
(OS compatibility mode should be left *unchecked*--we want to run this utility in Win8x64's normal mode)
reduced color mode : set to 16-bits
disable display scaling on high DPI settings
Run this program as an Administrator
This will bring up the setup screen as you have mentioned--except that *now* you will be able to select "Hardware accelerated 3d mode" and your installed 3d-card...! Close the setup utility immediately after setting it like you want--very important--*do not* click the "Run Might and Magic VII" button...! Just close the utility out by selecting the "Exit" button.
Next, go find your main game executable,
MM7.exe. Right click and select "Properties." Make sure that all check-boxes are *clear*--we don't want any compatibility modes set for the game executable. Running the game this way (and it runs this way perfectly) ensures that although the game is set to run 3d-accelerated in 16-bit color, Win8.1x64 will actually run the game in 32-bit color under Win8.1x64's normal memory management & D3d modes. You'll want to start the game from Gog's newer launch exe called "Launch Might and Magic VII - For Blood and Honor" from now on.
Hopefully this will fix you up. Until I got this figured out, it was indeed a puzzle as to how to precisely setup the game to run in D3d-accelerated mode, and iirc I was getting the same error you have reported. Good luck...;)
Didn't work for me. I should add that when I first installed MM7, it worked perfectly without any adjustments whatsoever (my OS is Win8.1). It's been a couple years since I last played it, however, and now it gave me the same error message as the OP - at first. But then it simply changed to "MM7.exe has stopped working". That was before I underwent the steps above, and after the steps above... still "MM7.exe has stopped working".
Edit: Here's something that
did work, though - kind of. I changed properties of MM7.exe the same way as MM7setup.exe. Then I could start the game, but...
-launching from MM7.exe was always windowed (solved by selecting fullscreen in MM7setup and clicking "launch" there)
-there was an odd fog around the edges of the screen in-game, and a sort of splash in the centre where the view was clear. Otherwise the game handled fine
-if I did not select 3d hardware acceleration, the above was instead replaced by a white non-transparent blob with chromatic edges, dead centre of the screen in-game. Otherwise the game handled fine.
I'll keep experimenting with graphics settings in properties.
Hmmmm... after tinkering some more, I got "MM7.exe has stopped working" again - even when I changed back to what worked before. Trying again with clean install.
Clean install didn't work, either. But curiously, ticking the compatibility box for Win95 changes the error from "There aren't any D3D devices to create" to "There aren't any D3D devices to init" - probably not significant.
Hopefully final edit: Sweet success! What I did was, with a clean install, to:
-tinker with the MM7setup.exe in the manner prescribed
-install Grayface's MM7 patch
-tick this box on MM7.exe only: Run as administrator
And that's it. Still have to run it via MM7setup to get fullscreen, though - selecting fullscreen won't stick otherwise, for some reason.
