I have a similar problem with my newer HP laptop. My guess is that the problem is related to the Nvidia graphics chip.
http://www.laptopvideo2go.com/
That's a site that hacks Nvidia drivers. Maybe you could try an older driver to get GR working.
The only advice I found was that someone had completely reinstalled WinXP and got GR to work again so the problem is bound to be related either to registry or video drivers.
I also noticed that when I start GR it crashes straight away, but the actual .exe runs in the background, so doesn't it seem like the game can't just show the actual
