Well, it turns out I was partially right about my theory.

I completely forgot that my fairly new Windows 8.1 laptop that I am testing out the Last Resort mod on doesn't have 16 bit colour modes.   I am not sure if this is just a Dell driver issue or my crappy onboard video chip issue.

The Last Resort launcher's code has now been fixed to deal with the problem regardless.  Bug squashed in the yet to be released version 0.7.

In situations like this when you don't have 16-bit colour on a Windows 8.1 machine if you place the LastResort.exe into Windows 7 (or even Windows 8) compatibility mode Windows will emulate 16-bit colour in 32-bit.   I wonder if this is the reason why Swat 3 in Windows 8 is so damned laggy?  Perhaps it isn't switching to 16-bit colour mode but instead just emulating it for everyone in 32-bit colour?

After coming home from a Billy Idol concert for some reason I wanted to spend more time troubleshooting the bug that has been bothering me lately.

For the record Billy Idol may be almost a senior citizen but, along with Steve Stevens, they put on one hell of a show.  The guys can still rock it.

I think I have finally narrowed down what has been causing the "Run-time error '9' Subscript out of range" problem.   For some reason Windows 8.1 doesn't like the subroutine that I use for determining the valid screen resolutions that are available.   This data is provided by your video card to Windows but for whatever reason doesn't work with Windows 8.1 but will work if you put the Last Resort launcher in Windows 7 or Windows 8 compatibility mode.

The error that results in the Launcher stopping is totally my fault because I didn't add a check in case there were no valid screen resolutions.   Yes, in hindsight this was a stupid thing to assume that the result wouldn't be zero.   No harm done other than me kicking myself for making such a silly mistake.

Now I just have to figure out why Windows 8.1 doesn't play nice with the code while all the other compatibility modes work fine.

Edit:  This may be more information than any of you care about but I think here is the problem as found on Microsoft's site:

EnumDisplaySettings function

Apps that you design to target Windows 8 and later can no longer query or set display modes that are less than 32 bits per pixel (bpp); these operations will fail. These apps have a compatibility manifest that targets Windows 8. Windows 8 still supports 8-bit and 16-bit color modes for desktop apps that were built without a Windows 8 manifest; Windows 8 emulates these modes but still runs in 32-bit color mode.

So what I think is happening is that while the Last Resort code is looking for 16bit colour modes to use with Swat 3 Windows 8 is saying nope, sorry, they have already been converted to 32bit so there are no 16bit modes that you can use.

I will have to modify the code to see if it can find 32 bit modes as a test...after I sleep. 

I am thinking of releasing a new version of the Last Resort mod but I need to solve a problem when people install Swat 3 into the Program Files (x86) folder.  What is happening is that Windows doesn't like the fact that I am reading and writing to files in the Swat 3 folder which happens to be in the Program Files (x86) folder.  Windows does this to protect the OS but is a pain in the ass.

With Windows 8 this can be fixed by making the Last Resort Launcher run in Windows 7 compatibility mode.   What is strange on my Windows 8.1 laptop is that if I place it in Windows 8 compatibility mode it also works fine.  Go figure.

The moral of the story is don't install Swat 3 to the Program Files (x86) folder if you want to use the Last Resort Mod.   It is better to store it in a custom folder like Games\Swat3 so you don't have strange problems like this.

I recently found out that the Last Resort launcher has a bug in it when run under Windows 8.  You should make the Last_Resort.exe run in Windows 7 compatibility mode (or even Windows XP Service Pack 3 mode) if you are having problems with it in Windows 8.

I was completely unaware that Windows 8 is very strict about saving the LastResort.ini file that stores the launcher's settings.   Windows 8 redirects the file into a Virtual Store folder as a way to make the operating system more secure.   The Last Resort launcher gets confused about the location of the file and crashes.  Perhaps including a manifest file will fix this problem in future releases or perhaps saving the settings file to AppData.   I will need to research this.

I understand why Microsoft does this but it doesn't mean I don't think it is a total pain in the ass.

I recently visited the Swat 3 forums at GOG.com and saw that there were a lot of people with technical problems running Swat 3 under Windows 8.   The biggest problems was extremely low frame rate issues.   I just bought a Windows 8 laptop so I figured I would install Swat 3 and test things out.

Boy, they weren't joking about how laggy the mouse movement was!  I was getting 2 frames per second in the menus.  A user in the forum, AdamK47, posted a fix that really helped a lot. 

I started a page on this website for all the Swat 3 and Last Resort fixes for Windows 8.

I also looked through this website and fixed any dead links I found.  I also updated the Swat 3 Patch Wizard to reflect URL changes to the patches.