"Akhra: The Treasures" was apparently coded using an old version of Microsoft's Visual Studio, & so it uses Microsoft's C/C++ runtimes from 2005. Rather than install those runtime files the game's developers included them in the game's folder -- that sometimes works, but here it doesn't in win7 [& I assume later versions of Windows], so those files have to be installed if you don't have them already... otherwise if you double click game.exe the game shows an error message & won't run, & if you use the MPC launcher it silently dies.
Anyway, as above I had to install those old runtime files for the game to run in my mostly virgin copy of win 7 in a VM. I had a link which I included in a comment on the download page, but the comment didn't make it [no big deal since it took 3 min to write], & I didn't save the link anywhere else -- the 2005 C/C++ runtimes are available at microsoft[.]com @ their download center. Note that they will leave leftover temporary files from the installation in the root folder [c:\], & note that there is a security update available for them [the update doesn't appear to include the 20005 runtimes, so can't just install that update].
