Anyone else getting a crash to desktop when launching the game? I was getting the directX error, but I updated directX and that went away. Now all I get is a crash to desktop immediately upon launching the game. The download passed the integity check and installed without an issue. It's working fine On my desktop, but CTD on my laptop.
My laptop is an ACER 5610: 1.6GHZ dual core cpu, 1.5gigs of ram, 945 intel graphics 80 gigs of hard drive space.
Never had a problem with a GOG release before and I've got a bunch of them.

Same problem with you :(

I have exactly the same problem.

I have the same problem also on my desktop computer. I have tried all the recommendations in the support thread. Run as administrator etc. but nothing is working. I have a vista os on an intel dual core machine. Any help would be appreciated. I have loved this game since it came out years ago and would love to get it working again.

Same problem. Seems like it my be a bug that gog is going to have to fix on their end. It's hard to blame gog if an extremely old game can't run on modern machines, but that is their whole business model.
They must be working on some solution for us.

The problem seems to lie with the 'ddraw.dll' file:
http://www.gog.com/en/forum/panzer_general_series/pg2_with_vista_ddraw_dll_error
Although I'm running XP, klkern58's fix of renaming the 'ddraw.dll' file has solved this problem for me and I shall be forever grateful!

The weird thing is that the comments for the buggy dll seem to indicate is it a wrapper to fix an issue with PG2.
Glad I could help. Hopefully we'll hear something from the gog guys soon.
Meanwhile....FORWARD PANZERS!!!!! :)

Thank you so much, renaming ddraw.ddl solved the problem!!!!

I'm having exactly the same problem. Needed new drivers and now it crashes upon starting.
So what did u rename the dll file as?

I think I've talked to this a couple of times already....;)
You can rename it to anything other than DDRAW.DLL. Rename it to THIS.SUCKS ;)

Same here
Renamed ddraw.dll and it worked!!!
FYI I'm running XP...
So many of us are having the same issue, is GOG testing their games *a bit* on laptops before releasing?

Just to echo what others have said, I had the exact same thing happen. First the diectX error requiring the update, then the CTD which was fixed by renaming the 'ddraw.dll' file. I'm also running it on an XP laptop.
All seems fine now, so thanks to klkern58 for solving this.

Renaming the ddraw.dll file worked for me! I renamed it Dll. like you guys said and it worked! Thx guys not I don't feel like I lost my money lolz!

guys i am running on win 7 (32bit) and did delete the .dll file and my game crashes after i complete the 1st campaign, namely "blitzkrieg". Is there something else, i need to do to make pg2 work? crazy about this since i first played the shorter version on a mobile phone.

if you are ok with PG2 without the videos, try out this, and follow instruction in the .rar file, the game works perfectly on windows 7 ;)
[Pl**e**a*s*e****d*o*n't****l*i*n*k****to**** down**load*a*b*l*e****version*s***o*f******game*s*****]

take out the astrix (*)