I've tried everything to get Postal 2 working on my machine but it always crashes with a runtime error as the game starts, just as the initial 'warning' box changes to the game itself.
The error is "R6025 - pure virtual function call", it drops to the desktop as soon as I close the error window.

Compatibility mode doesn't help, I've reinstalled the VC++ runtime libraries and even tried different nvidia graphics drivers. The installer does verify OK and exactly the same installer works in Ubuntu under Wine so the files must be OK. I just can't get it to work in windows. Anybody have any suggestions?

System: XP SP3 with all MS updates
2Gb RAM, 2.5GHz P2 processor, GTX8800 Nvidia card using DVI output and with the latest drivers. There is more than 200Gb of free disk space and nothing particularly loading the system.


[Fixed]
If anyone else has this problem, I have conclusively traced it to one particular USB peripheral. If a PICKit2 device from Microchip Inc. is present on the USB bus it causes the error. I *think* its an issue of DirectX trying to initialize it as an input device (it isn't), possibly the vendor code or product ID clashes with one DX3D thinks is something else.