I'm having a similar issue running Windows XP 64. I haven't used blitz for a while, but recently I decided to try someones game, and it didn't work. I then tried installing blitz3d, but none of the samples would run. They just crashed at startup. Programs with only a simple call to initialize graphics would cause this. It doesn't matter what the code is, nothing is executed before it crashes. Now, a couple months ago it was working. I had installed blitz to try and find some files, and in the process tried some of the sample programs for kicks, and they worked. Since then, I've done three things: updated my graphics drivers (unlikely the cause), upgraded my motherboards BIOS (also, unlikely to be the cause), and I installed the latest service pack, which I'm guessing caused this.