The installer won't work (it tries to install DirectX3, fails, then says the game can't be installed as a result). The fix is easy, simply copy the RCHAL folder off the CD-ROM to your PC (I'm using the SoftKey/Roadshow Interactive budget release), you can then run the game from the RALLY95.EXE file. This is better than the actual installer, which adds links to CompuServe(!) and has no uninstall mechanism!

Initially the game will show a pop-up to say no prefs file is found, this is correct.

If you run the game with no compatibility (on my Win8.1 at least) it'll stop shortly after launch with a pop up saying "DirectDraw Error : cannot attach pal to front buffer UNDEF DD ERROR".

So, apply Win95 compatibility to RALLY95.EXE. It'll now show the initial loading screens, then it should play an opening video from the CD-ROM, however it instead crashes with a message "DirectDraw Error : resize UNDEF. DD ERROR". Now from running the game in VMware Player, I can see it resizes the screen to play the video, perhaps to a resolution that's not supported? I don't think there's any way to skip the videos either (there's one on startup and one when exiting the game).

I tried DXGL (sort of - just put ddraw and the config file of DXGL in the game folder) but that just shows black screens (never really played with DXGL much yet though). I tried Dege's DirectX wrapper, and that errored right away with the initial error I found.

Note: often when crashing, the game still runs in memory, so fire up Task Manager to kill it (under Background Processes).

If this is a game that will only work on a virtual machine, then fair enough. However I noticed that the CD audio (should play on the menu screen, and you can swap tracks by pressing C on the menu screen) doesn't play, even in Win98SE via VMware Player. A little side quirk anyway.

So, anyone got any Compatibility tips? Or a copy of the game to have a go with? It's probably out there on the net to download, if anyone wants a go. There doesn't seem to be any registry strings installed, although if you install the game via the START.EXE on the CD (a 16bit stub so needs a virtual machine) it will create a folder with an ini file in for the game, but it doesn't seem to contain anything useful, as the game works fine without it).