nope i dont use mods, the only thing is that I have a no-cd exe but thats because I have my game loaned out to a friend but even then it always worked in the past. I have reinstalled at least 4 times and the last time was in a completely different spot. And yes I have tried switching between the 2 versions. And another funny thing is that on my dell the game loads up to when I click on start multi theft auto, after the loading bar gets done and when the game starts to load it crashes.
EDIT: btw I have 2 servers up, one running for vice city and the other running for GTA 3... both have my username here at the begining of the servers name.