When trying to run homm 2 windows version (regardless SW or POL 2.0 / 2.1) on win 10-64 bit, screen turns black, changes to lower resolution, goes white, then turns black with a game mouse cursor, then changes back to original resolution white screen with smaller black rectangle on it, then again changes to lower resolution and spits out direct draw error mentioned in first post of this discussion.
Basically screen glitches up a few times and game doesn't work. Compatibility modes doesn't help.

With your "compatibility pack" screen just goes white and stays that way. No error messeges.

Side effects: I can't close homm application, can't see desktop, can't bring up task manager. PC simply wont display any of it. Just white screen with taskbar... Either I have to log out, restart pc or create extra desktop so I can turn of homm app from task manager. Annoying stuff.

Maybe I didn't understand how to apply your fix.?
I installed vc++ x86 2017 and placed both files in game directory folder. (heroes II gold, that means I tried it on POL version 2.1 exe file)

In homm 2 folder there are only two dll files. SMACKW32 and MSS32.
Wing32 is in system32 folder...
Deleting any of them won't work, because game simply does not work without them.

At this point it seems like too much of a hassle to make it work "out of the box". I'm already able to run the game on win10 using dxwnd no problem.

Hello sir, you're very, very close.

It opens the movie just fine, and it lets you run the game just fine. Two problems I've encountered.

One, the game freezes up if you try to access the menu to change the music.

Two, the game is unplayable at present because it doesn't have the "shhh" noise you get when you collect an item or you destroy an enemy.

Movement works fine. You can interact with some, but not all. I am using the Millennium edition, so perhaps that's why it's not quite working? Not sure.

In any case, you're likely just missing one or two things, one file, I'm not sure. There's something wrong with the pointers and the mouse and something to do with the music would be my guesses based on what I'm seeing.

Thank you so much for providing a workable solution! Very happy to get so close to getting this old game working natively on Windows 10!

Hmm, I've only tested on the HoMMII version available via GOG. Not sure if the millenium edition is any different.

Are you using color or black and white mouse? What resolution is your desktop at when you launch the game? Do the issues go away when you run in windowed mode? (press F4 to toggle between window and full screen)

It worked, tthank you mate!

through to let you know its the main executable that is broke,
as i found from fresh install that if you use graphic settings.exe instead you can play it from there without any issues.
The moment i use the main executable file, i have to uninstall the game and reinstall it to work.
I have changed the main shortcut to load from graphic settings.exe as default.
No more game loading issues.

Hope this helps :)