Win7 doesn't have DX9 installed by default as I recall, so you should install it first. It can coexist alongside with DX10 (or DX11), so don't worry about it. Not sure about a link for it though, hopefully someone does have it handy.

I was wondering about that, so thank you for the clarification. But just to make certain, those files were installed with any DX9 version in WinXP, or only with the "Complete DX9" so to speak?

Again, thanks for all the help guys. What a great community! I'm going to try the supplied links and see what happens. Lots of great tips in this thread for a new Windows 7 gamer.

I've been running Windows 7 - 64 bit for quite some time now, and up until now I only had one game (X-Wing Allience) which I couldn't get to run. Some require some extra work (I remember having to do a bit extra for Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines), but usually it isn't that hard. Often the trick is - as other have said -that you must run the game as an administrator. Sometimes some other compatability-mode is necessary, but you van get there by the properties settings. I run all of my GOG and physical disc games in c:\games [subfolders], however my steam games (including VTMB) are in their default place. I have my UAC at the highest level and never turn my Microsoft Security Essentials off, but of course, but by letting a game run as administrator some security is lost.

I'm not sure, but I don't think they removed any DirectX9 files from Windows 7 (when comparing to XP). They may have replaced older ones with newer ones, but I'm not sure about this too.

In any case, relative to XP, since it was released in 2002, doesn't have most of the files in the redistributable package (many of them were developed / updated after XP was released). So, don't know if this answers your question, but neither XP has the 'complete package' of DirectX9.

Problem solved - installing the Directx files per the link above did the trick! Interestingly, I probably never would have elicited a solution from you guys if I hadn't tried running the .exe directly, since launching from Steam never returned any error.

Learned a lot about Windows 7. Thanks again everyone.

I don't like the UAC so I shut it off. I've heard conflicting stories about how successful it is at improving your security (you will find people who swear to keeping it on), but I never seemed to have any issues with my computer upon disabling it the first day.

Start-->Search "user account conrol"-->select "Change User Account Control Settings" and drag the slider all the way down. Restart your computer.

As for Numen, seems like you fixed that.

Next time, remember to install games in C:\Games or some similar place. You won't have to deal with permissions, much (since some old games still require to be run as admin).