Cannot play Ghost Master under XP

[Scythia]

Hi.

I bought Ghost Master on Steam a while ago. I had it before, but lost the CD, and 2€ was a steal.

I tried the game on Win7 and it worked, though it lagged a lot, most likely because win7 isn't compatible with the drivers for my video card.
But the actual problem is that I can't play under Win XP Prof. I can start the game, and I do get to the menu, but when I click "new game" I just get thrown out of the game and I get the message "ghost.exe has encountered a critical error and had to shut down" (well, I translated it from German).

I'm quite sure I was able to play on XP as I had the CD Version.

My Hardware:
Geforce 9800GT 1024MB
2 x DDR2 1024MB PC800
CPU INTEL Core2Duo E8400
ASUS P5Q-E

[Nemesis]

Is the Steam version with or without the extra level Class of Spook 'em High?

[Scythia]

Hmm, dunno. It didn't say anything about an extra level.
How do I know which version I have?

[Scythia]

Ok, my friend tells me it has the bonus level.

[Nemesis]

Then maybe it's possible to replace the executable with one I have! But first we need to check something. Open the Windows Explorer and head over to C:\Program Files\Empire Interactive\GhostMaster. Does it contain a folder Ghostdata?

[Scythia]

I have that folder, though steam installes the games at a different location, obviously.

[Nemesis]

No problem! Let's see if replacing the executable helps.

- Go to the main Ghost Master folder (in my case C:\Program Files\Empire Interactive\GhostMaster).
- Backup the ghost.exe file.
- Replace it with the one from this zip file.
- Do the same with the ghost.exe in Ghostdata (if present).

[Scythia]

No, unfortunately that doesn't help at all. I get the same error.

[Nemesis]

If you click through to the error report, does it say which module or library (dll, if any) caused the error?

[Scythia]

Ok, it seems I found the reason for this bug.
I don't have sounddrivers installed (PC is new and the ones on CD kinda don't work but did kill the default divers). If I plug in my USB- Headset the game works. As soon as I unplug it, it crashes.

Now, if they had managed to put in proper error messages, it would have been a lot easier to figure out...

Anyway, thanks for the help.