Bit of a necro, but based on the human lore description in DW1's encyclopedia, the reason why the 'Sol System' doesn't look anything like the actual Solar System is because humanity is implied to be an extragalactic immigrant instead of native; they just named it Sol after their real home in the ...

Nope, didn't work.

I get to the splash screen, and the game just closes there. No intro, no menu.

I've restored my PC to factory settings and am trying again to set it up.

I've rerun the DirectX Setup, didn't work. I'm going to try the microsoft version.

By reinstall do you mean rerun DXSetup.exe, or uninstall and download another one from Microsoft?

<t> And this is the crash dump.<br/>
System.ApplicationException: Error in the application.<br/>
at Microsoft.DirectX.DirectSound.Device..ctor()<br/>
at DistantWorlds.Main.x7utj98t4m(Int32 , Int32 , Boolean )<br/>
at DistantWorlds.Main..ctor(Int32 width, Int32 height, Boolean windowedMode ...

<t> Here is what I got from my DirectX Diagnostics.<br/>
<br/>
Current Date/Time: 23 September 2016, 18:31:38<br/>
Computer Name: FRANK<br/>
Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit (10.0, Build 10586)<br/>
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)<br/>
System Manufacturer: ASUSTeK ...