[mckay]

Just to add also anyone running Vista and GoW who are experiencing the crash to the desktop and "Gears of War has stopped working " message.

found this from KingMoffSOH at GearsofWarForum.net

"i just bought Gears of War for pc and when it loaded after about 30 seconds it crashed with windows trying to find the problem. it looks like its a major problem for many. anyway after a few hours looking through post after post i managed to get the game running and not crash at all. im using vista ultimate 32 bit. hope this helps others.
goto your Gears of War folder
doubleclick binaries and scroll down the page till you find ' Startup '
send Startup to desktop
doubleclick it and when the game loads goto the Live account setup or login to your Live account and when your in install the Live update, as you would have found before you didnt have time to install the update.
run the install and then start the game using the Startup icon you created on your decktop, the game will start to load in a window but when it gets going just alt/enter to maximise screen.
thats the way i sorted the problem and the game runs brilliant. maybe the post has been shown before or something similar but i hope this helps. "