I've got a pretty annoying problem with gog's setup files. I have two drives, one of which (C:) is full. Almost every time I start up a setup file from this site, it autocloses with the message "ShellExecuteEx failed; code 11. There is not enough space on the disk." However, once in every 20 or so attempts, it stays open and allows me to change the directory to G: (my other drive, which has plenty of space on it). Anyone have this problem, and know a fix? I run Vista, which might be part of the issue.

You'll find that too filled C:\ drive eventually causes all kinds of issues if it's a system drive.

In most windows newer OSs, the installer first expands the files from the installer to a temp folder on the system drive and then puts them where you chose to install them to. This means you could have enough space on the target drive but because your system drive doesn't have enough space for the temp installer files the thing won't run right.

A system drive that has too much on it tends to fragment badly, and can affect the performance of your entire system. And running defrag on such drives can be a frustrating exercise.

You should consider freeing space by uninstalling some programs on C: and reinstalling them to G: - and/or possibly relocate the page file and temp folder to G:

You really should free up some space on your C drive, which I assume is your system drive. Your OS needs to fiddle with the file system on your system drive, and having no available space there is guaranteed to cause you all sorts of problems.

I used to have so many games installed at once that my C drive was sweating constantly. Not good! For the past few years I have limited myself to 5-10 games installed at once, which keeps my drive nice and empty. Out of 1TB I try to keep at least 200GB empty, usually more.

I would do this but I usually take months to finish a game, playing several at once, a bit at a time........if I deleted my games i'd have to play some of them over again and that's not good for me.

I have to agree with the others. If you need to have all that installed on your C: then either consider installing Windows on one of your other drives instead or simply buying a new drive.

Although you should of course keep your system drive as clean as possible, in a pinch you might be able to fix it by right clicking on My Computer and opening the Properties.
There under Environmental Variables you can edit where temporary files are stored, for you as a user and for the system itself.
If you move the temp folder to another drive it should work.. I think.

Not really. That depends on the way the installer was made, not on the Windows version.

Is it too late for me to chime in with "make room on your C: drive"? ; )

A lot of hi-performance PCs are coming with small C: drives (often Raptors or SSDs) for the OS and essentials, and using a second drive for big apps and general storage. Seems to work well for them.

Myself, I install all of my GOGs on a USB 2.0 external drive since disk performance isn't so much an issue with these older games. And really, it only adds a couple seconds to load time and level-loads, so no big whoop. Keeps the C: drive running nicely without all of that clutter.