it asks where you want them extracted. Does it matter where?

Nevermind, I extracted them into 'downloads' everything was fine - it comes with the dxsetup.exe file.

anyway I ran it, it insalled some things, and then I tried to open sacred which didn't work, still. :\

Am I supposed to re boot or something beforehand? I'll try again after my next reboot.

It's possible that DirectX 9 wasn't the cause of your problem. It's a tough nut after all ;-)
Maybe Window''s Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is causing trouble. Try to add Sacred to DEP's exception list.
How-to: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/Change-Data-Execution-Prevention-settings?SignedIn=1

It was added (so far the only program there) and nothing. *sigh* this game is possessed.

At this point, it would probably be better to set something up like Remote Assistance. I could take a look to see what might be the culprit. PM me so that we can find a time together so that I can try troubleshooting.

I can't figure out how to send a personal message. In the 'message' tab it shows previous conversations but no tab to 'send a message' or 'compose message'.
The system isn't intuitive.

Hover over his name here in this thread, then a yellowish Button with "PM" on it should appear. Press it and write your message afterwards.

I've sent you a PM message, xenxander. You should see it on your next login.

I've reformatted my hard drive.
I've reinstalled windows, my motherboard drivers, and my new video card drivers.
Once I had no 'unknown devices' in system manager, I decided to reinstal sacred and see what happens.

IT opened and played.

Well keep in mind, I have NOTHING else installed. No camtasia, no fraps, no steam, no anything (too many things to list or off the top of my head to remember)

There may be a conflict as I install all my old programs one at a time.

Before I close this topic as 'fixed', I will get my PC back up to where it was, prior. Once that has happened, I will then see if sacred crashes (and see if it crashes throughout the process, periodically).

Also there's a possibility that a windows update caused the conflict. That's something I won't know for sure.

stand by.

Thanks for letting us know, as said before I suspected the system to be broken somehow. The unsuccessful installations of the Windows updates you mentioned were clearly pointing in this direction. Though one never knows if this is actually the cause for the game to crash. I'm glad you decided to start with a fresh Windows installation, as it's hard to find these errors when the standard fixing tools that we've tried don't indicate a failure. The best is that Sacred runs out of the box now. I'm looking forward to see if it stays that way or if there's indeed a specific software conflict, when you continue setting up your system.

I think there may have been an issue with a megacodex packet. I will not be reinstalling that packet (It's outdated anyway, by several years now). I had uninstalled it though before and didn't have it on my PC, however it's possible it still caused a video conflict that made the game crash.
If my other programs don't cause a problem, I think I can say it was a prior codex packet.

I'm hesitant to reinstall things like divx, as that puts video codex on your PC, and as I do not use virtualdub any longer for my video edition (which requires codex installed, as it doesn't come with any on its own).

I'm also considering not re-installed xvid video codex.

Strangely enough, i now have 6 important updates that cannot be installed in windows. One cannot say 'it's due to a bad installation of windows'. I think they are merely bad updates that microsoft just shat out for no reason and that don't work.

Anyway, it looks like the problem was in codex.

I've re-installed everything other than programs that install codex (xvid, divx, and codex packs).

If this problem persists for others, the only option is an FDISK, and re-install. Codex packs (and to a lesser extent programs like xvid and divx) can cause a lot of video conflicts with other programs. Even after you uninstall the codex packs (For me it was the old ace mega codex pack which is way outdated, then a newer codex pack that was lighter on the codex but gave me essential codex I needed for virtualdub), the conflict will not (REPEAT, WILL NOT) go away.

There's some registry or perhaps *.dll file that just gets altered in a way that will screw things up.

So, my issue is now resolved, but sadly it wasn't via any tech support. Just an old fashioned FDISK.

[edit] how do you label a topic as 'fixed'?

Apparently you can't mark your own post as 'the solution'. That's pretty lame! What if you found out how to fix your own problem and wanted to share it? -_- GOG needs to fix this.

Dont know, never started a topic myself, yet. Thats rude! The solution was a reinstalling of Windows, wasnt it? Also I was the first in this topic that said this (even if I was kidding at this moment): I have installed Windows 7 64 bit just a short time ago on some completely different computers, with different hardware and with different settings and configuration, even with some low level changes on the system itself and couldnt experience such problems on any of them nor on any of the computer that is running this system for a while now.

Even that I know that it could be a problem on microsofts side, especially because they already had broken updates, I still really think, that you broke your system yourself, again (with any suspicious software, like the mentioned codec packs). It will go away, if you know how to do it! Of course it maybe wont go away by just pressing uninstall...

A maybe easy way to repair such things could be the DSF/MFT Viewer of the DXVA Checker Tool, that helped me many times already (because of the broken Video Hardware Acceleration of Ati Graphics Cards). But there exist also different alternatives, one would be to do it yourself :P (but most people just cant).

What worked for me, go to START > PROGRAMMES > GOG > SACRED GOLD > SACRED GOLD LAUNCH ICON.

Right click on the icon and choose Send to Desktop. Then launch the game from there.

FYI I am using Win 7 64 bit.