when i try to launch populous the begining my explorer.exe crashes and the game stops loading at "GOGLauncher" in the task manager and does not go beyond this

Try the other Populus shortcut in the directory, either the one with D3D in the name, or the one without.

thanks, running the base popTB seems to let me play the game, but when it comes it exiting the game it freezes up and i am unable to force close it due to been unable to interact with anything behind it resulting in me needing to restart my computer :(

Even if your press alt f4 togehther or alt ctrl delete together and end the task of populous or ctrl escape.

pressing ctrl, alt and del brings up the emergency menu and allows me to start the task manager but i am unable to see or interact with the task manager as when the emergency menu closes i am back to the frozen black game screen

Have my upvote good sir, worked on the first try, will throw this to be on the top of the line for windows 10 suggests atleast

This is what worked for me on Win10:

1.Right click popTB.exe, go to Properties

2.The following should be checked on:
-Run this program in compatibility mode for Windows 98 / Windows Me
-Run in 640x480 screen resolution (you can change this to 800x600 via the in-game menu)
-Disable fullscreen optimizations
-Run this program as an administrator

3. Run popTB.exe

What do if I am unable to change what compatibility mode it is set to? I'm on windows 7. It is currently greyed out to run in compatability for windows 95.

You probably need to click the "Change settings for all users" button near the bottom of the Compatibility tab - I actually had to do the same thing.

Sadly I have the same issue. Can this game even run on 1080p or a high resolution in a windowed mode ? If I run it without the d3d it literally makes ~60% of my monitor be black borders.

Considering that widescreen was still in the experimental phases when the game came out: No.