That's really peculiar. Alright, here is virtually every relevant current condition that Diablo 1 is running on my seldom used Windows 8.1 laptop. I realize you probably checked/tried many of these already, but if you match all of this exactly I'm curious if it still doesn't work. At one point I had a similar issue where my installed & patched Diablo worked on Win 8 but stopped working spontaneously one day, and I hadn't done anything with the computer lately. Not sure if a Windows update triggered it or what but it crashed on launch after that just like yours, until I found the wrapper you're having trouble with, which let Diablo and Hellfire run once again on it. So, assuming it is the same issue your laptop is having now, this is worth a test just to be sure.
*1) Diablo is patched to v1.09 (not sure how to tell when you can't start the game, normally it displays in the menu in the bottom left corner; if you're not positive it is patched to the latest version, download the latest official patch from Blizzard here and make certain you right-click the patch and run it as an administrator - Blizzard has a v1.09b as well, which is fine, either version will do but the game will display v1.09 either way)
*2) Diablo is not located anywhere inside a special Windows folder, such as Program Files, My Documents, or other user folders; it should be in a path such as C:\Games or something else you created, so Windows won't restrict the game's folder from the game itself with weird UAC security policies
*3) Diablo has the following Compatibility options set, and no others (right click on it or its shortcut, then choose Properties and go to the Compatibility tab):
-Run this program in compatibility mode for: Windows XP (Service Pack 3)
-Reduced color mode -- 8-bit (256) color
-Run this program as an administrator
*4) The ddraw.dll file in the directory shows the following information when you hold the mouse over it:
-Company: StrangeBytes.com
-File version: 6.1.7600.16385
-Size: 190 KB
Short of that, I'm not sure what to tell you. None of the DirectDraw wrappers you could try should have done anything that would affect Diablo or your system after deleting the relevant ddraw.dll file from the Diablo directory. By deleting that it should of gone back to behaving just like before. If you're super desperate you can try a system restore to the earliest date you can find before you tried out a different ddraw.dll file, but that seems extreme. Something seems amiss here, because the game should be working with or without the wrapper, yet works with neither.
Addendum: Even if you're sure you're patched to the latest version, if nothing here works for you, try running the patch anyway. I just found a thread where another user claims the game starts successfully if the v1.09 patch launches it, but not when he does. Sounds like an administrative permission or file path issue for him, but since I can't be certain it might be worth a try for you.
*1) Diablo is patched to v1.09 (not sure how to tell when you can't start the game, normally it displays in the menu in the bottom left corner; if you're not positive it is patched to the latest version, download the latest official patch from Blizzard here and make certain you right-click the patch and run it as an administrator - Blizzard has a v1.09b as well, which is fine, either version will do but the game will display v1.09 either way)
*2) Diablo is not located anywhere inside a special Windows folder, such as Program Files, My Documents, or other user folders; it should be in a path such as C:\Games or something else you created, so Windows won't restrict the game's folder from the game itself with weird UAC security policies
*3) Diablo has the following Compatibility options set, and no others (right click on it or its shortcut, then choose Properties and go to the Compatibility tab):
-Run this program in compatibility mode for: Windows XP (Service Pack 3)
-Reduced color mode -- 8-bit (256) color
-Run this program as an administrator
*4) The ddraw.dll file in the directory shows the following information when you hold the mouse over it:
-Company: StrangeBytes.com
-File version: 6.1.7600.16385
-Size: 190 KB
Short of that, I'm not sure what to tell you. None of the DirectDraw wrappers you could try should have done anything that would affect Diablo or your system after deleting the relevant ddraw.dll file from the Diablo directory. By deleting that it should of gone back to behaving just like before. If you're super desperate you can try a system restore to the earliest date you can find before you tried out a different ddraw.dll file, but that seems extreme. Something seems amiss here, because the game should be working with or without the wrapper, yet works with neither.
Addendum: Even if you're sure you're patched to the latest version, if nothing here works for you, try running the patch anyway. I just found a thread where another user claims the game starts successfully if the v1.09 patch launches it, but not when he does. Sounds like an administrative permission or file path issue for him, but since I can't be certain it might be worth a try for you.