Hi all, just read every post about this great game and can't tell you how excited to play it again! After reading all the posts, I used all the scattered helpful hints and successfully loaded the game on a P4 2.8GHz using D-Fend in Windows XP, SP 2, with ALL sounds, and no crashes (yet!). I hope I can help others who have had pretty much the same reoccuring problems. I'll address them as best as I can:
1) I was able to find a download for syndicate from another very popular DOS games site, so you should have no problem finding it.
2) Extract the files. (should be another zip file and a .rar file)
3) The additional zip file is a mistake, just delete it. Use winRAR to unpack the .rar file. (I put it in c:\program files\games\syndicate)
4) Now you should have a folder (synd) containing: two folders (DATA, SAVE), three .exe files (DOS4GW, INTRO, MAIN), and one .bat file (SYND).
5) Replace the dos4gw.exe file with version 1.97, available at
http://www.pfxcorp.com/download/download.html (slightly below halfway down the page.)
6) Right-click synd.bat file, and select edit. Change BOTH iirq5 values to iirq7.
7) Use the D-Fend wizard to create a new profile for Syndicate, using main.exe as the "Game EXE" run file. I just hit "Auto Create" for mounting, which it does straight to the C Drive and works fine. Increase memory to 63MB and up the clock speed to 10,000 (ten thousand).
8) After the profile is created, edit the profile, go to the General tab, and check the boxes next to "Start Fullscreen" and "Auto Lock Mouse."
That should get you to a fully functioning experience complete with a working intro, music that changes according to the situation (you know when agents have spotted you just by listening), sounds for different weapons, and my favorite "DROP YOUR WEAPONS" when the police see you brandishing that shiny Uzi! I really hope this works for everyone else who is having problems.
I gotta tell you, it really made me remember having to do this all back when the all-powerful blinking underscore was my tool in DOS!
Happy Holidays everyone!