Can't Play SPWAW

[MrPlow]

Yes, Matrix seems to have cleaned out their archives. They issued the v4.4 update in Dec, I think. Each update thoughtfully backs up the previous mech.exe to mechvxx.exe for fallback.
Individual updates up to v4.5 from a base prior to v4.0 are still at http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/spwaw_downloads.htm
But you still need a base - I installed a fresh v3 base from the CD in the October 2000 issue of PC Gamer magazine and have been updating it ever since.
You might download the v4.4 update from fprado and extract the mech.exe module for use with your v4.5 base. That combo works best for me.

[Fozzie]

I don't know if it's related but I had a directdraw error for a while which happened right after the splash screen which would crash me to the desktop. I found out after much trial and error that the monitor driver that my computer defaulted to couldn't go to 800x600 resolution and this was causing the crash. I just went to the display properties and selected a different monitor type that would enable 800x600 and that fixed it right up.