I also have this problem, though mine seems to be more difficult to solve. I run Windows XP Home.
I have the Windows Version of TTD, and I can't even run the original TTD .exe file. It first gave me the message that it couldn't read the registry. I corrected that by setting it in compatibility mode for Windows 95. Now I get the message that it can't find the TTD CD.
I've downloaded the patch, but when I attempt to run it, I get a DOS prompt that appears, then disappears before I can read the text. I do know the text says something about languages, but I don't have enough time to see the rest before it closes itself.
These are my computer specs:
Edit: I took a screenie to find out what the text says about language. It doesn't recognize my language set (which is American, btw). I'm going to reinstall with an English set, and see if that fixes the problem.
Edit 2: I managed to set the language to English, and made it to another hurdle. Now I am running in the DOS Prompt, and I get the following message:
TTDPatch V2.0 rev 1 (Windows) starting.
TTDLOADW.ovl not found, looking for original files:
GAMEGFX.exe: No such file or directory.
Could not find GAMEGFX.exe.
Press any key to abort.
I do have gamegfx.exe in that directory, so I'm not sure what the problem is.