DX permanently broken for game by alt-tabbing.. =S

[AVFX]

Hey guys, I'm having a strange issue with a game, and the most simple way to put it is this:
It did work.
Now it doesn't

I'll go through specifically what happened in order:
I downloaded a copy of Empire Earth (I own a copy + the expansion, they're just currently buried in boxes).
Now this copy of the original didn't need any installation, is in a self contained folder, and ran no problem. Played it for a day, all went well.
I put it through a hundred alt+tabs at awkward points, tested the limits of the screen resolutions it could handle, it didn't complain.

A day later I downloaded the expansion, which came as an ISO requiring installation, no problem. That worked great too. Went through the same crap the original did, didn't complain one bit.

Played it for a day before thinking hey, I wanna go Windowed mode (it doesn't have that feature), so I Googled how to do it..
I found a link to this piece of software, which didn't need installing:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/dxwnd/
I experimented with the settings after adding the exe to it..

I kept trying them differently, and even accidentally disabled ('unhooked') it and it ran fullscreen after initially messing around with it a lot.
Despite all this, it still worked either in the window or fullscreen, no problem.

The reason I did this was because it was a pain that it was on a limited maximum resolution too small to suit me when windowed, and the mouse still acted like it was fullscreen after the first resize.
By resize I mean, and it may be important to know, that the game changes resolution multiple times when opening, first a tiny 25x25 test box or so I've read, then several videos on a different resolution, then the main menu is yet another resolution..)

So after all this, I've still not done anything that should be irreversible to my system now have I..? I mean it wouldn't make sense.. unless DXWND actually modifies DX's core settings..

Now here's what happened that broke the game:
I'd force closed DXWND by the task manager a few times because I couldn't be bothered to wait for it to boot up after I already knew it wasn't doing what I wanted..
At this point giving up, I ran the game normally, but was trying to quickly drag a window onto another screen at the time it should have gone fullscreen.
The game usually makes all my screens flicker on and off about 3-4 times as though it's switching when opening it, so it's hard to know if it's really on the game or the desktop.. but I alt-tabbed because I thought I'd made it miss the window.
Then I thought otherwise and alt-tabbed again when it flickered back to the desktop. Eventually it stopped flickering and I was stuck on the desktop, the game wouldn't go fullscreen, so I closed it with the Task Manager.

Again, none of this should actually break the game, so I'm really confused..
But now, every time I try to open it, it just crashes on the splash screen.
Not only that, but the other self contained copy of the Original, a completely unconnected game, a version that has nothing in the Registry, a plug & play copy.. also has the exact same error now.

But nothing could have caused it, this is completely insane =/

Things I've tried:
Running with Disable Display Scaling, Disable desktop composition, Disable visual themes, running as admin, in compatibility for XP.

I've further tried
Uninstalling
Making sure all settings were removed
Cleaning anything related to it out of the Registry
Rebooting
Then reinstalling..
No luck.

I got a different copy where there's an installer for both the original and the expansion, and still it's the same.. the original worked at first, before installing the expansion, but that's it. Didn't again after uninstalling completely the same as the first time.

I've probably uninstalled and reinstalled it a hundred times now to no avail.
The crash happened like this most of the time:
I try to run the file.
Screens blink like going fullscreen
Crash box with '~has stopped working' and 'Close the program' button appears.
Clicking close makes another blink of all my screens.

In problem details, everything is just random numbers except for the "Fault Module Name", which is a file 'DX7HRDisplay.dll'. This file is in the installation directory of both the original and expansion versions of the game, though a slightly different size in each.
On Googling that, I've tried removing the file from the folder and running, but it just gives me the same error with 'DX7HRTnLDisplay.dll' instead.
Removing that too just gives an error for another DLL, and removing just that instead has the same error as when they're both there.
I tried replacing them from copies I found on the net, swapping them, to no avail..
However, ONCE, when the first mentioned DLL was removed from the expansions folder, (after about the 3rd or 4th time I tried it), the original game opened. After I closed it, without changing anything, the error was back.
Then randomly after reinstalling again, after setting it to compatibility for 98/ME, the Expansion version let me open it once, and I even made it into my game.. but the resolution was really low, and the mouse had some weird thing where it would move 5 times as fast vertically than horizontally. After closing and trying to re-open, it crashes again with the same settings. After reinstalling again, it doesn't open again like last time though it's still on compatibility for 98/ME..
It seems I can do things the exact way 10 times and get 3 different results.
Now the crash doesn't have the screen blinks.. it's more instantaneous. Unless I put it in compatibility for 95.. then I get the blinks back. Oh, and then going back to 98 again they're still back, despite that it was going to 98 that made them stop. Yep, blinks permanently back now.

So what's happening seems completely illogical in so many ways.. it's like reality is trolling me?? >.<
All because I Alt+Tabbed at the wrong moment.. how can that possibly do permanent damage to a system? This is completely insane =/ Alt+Tab should not have that power.
And now nothing I can do can fix it, and there's nothing online about it, no advice about how to fix it anywhere..
Does anyone have any idea what the hell is going on with my machine and how to fix this?


I'm running Win 7 Pro x64 on a Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H with an i7-3770k CPU and two Radeon HD 7870s with Crossfire disabled but Overdrive on. I'm running 6 screens, my primary being a 2560x1440, two 1920x1080 monitors are running downsampled at 2560x1440, one 1920x1080 running normally, and two 1280x1024s. The downsampling is the reason I can't test updating my GPU drivers. They blocked it from working in later versions so I'm on CCC 12.8.. but to be fair, if it worked before on these drivers, it's not valid logic that I should have to update. I'm just saying this because that's so commonly the primary advice people come up with, and it's not a valid option for me.. I want to directly fix the problem rather than work around it if possible.



Also worth noting, is that both games come with DirectX 8.0, (8.1 in the Expansion), which I never initially installed when it worked.. but the problems started way before I did install them on about the 5th or 6th reinstallation, and that changed absolutely nothing.

Does anybody have any idea what's going on? And damn I wrote a lot.. you can tell how much I wanna play this game again. Really just putting all the relevant information I could so everything that's happened is clear.
Thanks in advance for any help.

Cheers,
Tony