By the way, I'm thinking maybe this time round I haven't installed something I had before - I'm not reinstalling all the same software, and certainly not in the same order! Maybe some sort of emulation patch.

sdl
Simple DirectMedia Layer
http://www.libsdl.org/

Thanks, but I found a copy of SDL.dll, after that I still get the 'This application was unable to start correctly' error.

Clearly, it worked before, and I don't remember doing anything special to install it.

right click run as administrator ?

Tried that, with all the Compatibility Modes, no joy...

And yes, I've rebooted, a few times now.

On further investigation, it does seem to be a problem with SDL.dll - I've found that the error AFTER I put a copy of SDL.dll into Windows is a dll initialisation failure (0xc0000142). Further, I've found that Win7x64 can put dlls into either Windows\System32 or into Windows\SysWOW64

Neither works. At some time before I last loaded this game up, a working copy of SDL.dll must have been installed to my system. Now I can't find one.

ive got 2 copies of sdl on my pc i could email them to you

I have 4 copies from different games, plus 2 versions downloaded from the official SDL site. From what I read online, I may need my Registry repaired. But as it's only currently affecting one (not very good) game, I'm leaving it.

Thanks for the assist, folks, but false alarm, it's a PC problem, not a game problem...

perhaps the dll needs registering ?

start
run
cmd
regsvr32 path & filename of dll

(thats for xp may be slightly different on win7 x64)

Hmm... "The module "C:\windows\sdl.dll" was located but the entry-point DIIIRegisterServer was not found."

maybe there's a different way to do it in Windows 7 64-bit.

But, damnit, it worked before without all this! Thanks again...

EDIT: I found different ways, and locations, to register dlls in Win7, but they didn't work.

you usually get that entry point error when its the wrong version
but heres the strange thing I cannot imagine an install program needing sdl.dll ?

Hmm... but it's not telling me what version it wants, just (initially) that it's not there, and all the other versions I have are the same, 1.2.13.0

ive got version
1.2.12.0

still cant imagine setup.exe needing sdl seems really strange as its not a standard windows component

edit : there is something very wrong here pandemonium 2 was released in 1997
sdl was not created untill 1998

OK, yes, that's really strange...
EDIT: It also says "Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem" - now, given that I'm running a Setup program off a CD, that's a strange message - maybe the Setup program is trying to run something else it shouldn't be...

try copying the files to a folder and run as admin from there

Nope, tried that, same result.

Thank you for continuing to help, although I think you may be as annoyed by this as I am now! I've decided not to be annoyed by it for a bit, I have plenty of other games, ones that work.

Davros wrote:

there is something very wrong here pandemonium 2 was released in 1997
sdl was not created untill 1998

Could it be that he is trying to run a non-PC version in an emulator and that it is the emulator that wants SDL?

It is a PC version - it worked last month before my Laptop reset itself to factory settings, and I had to start from scratch (by the way, avoid any games with StarForce DRM if you have Win7x64...).

I do agree with the implication that it's a problem in my laptop though, not one with the game.