S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl - Won't start after installing mod

The latest in my catalogue of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. woes.

Okay, here's the long and short of it:

A few months ago, I was playing Clear Sky and ran into some insurmountable CTD problems, so I just gave up playing the game.

Last week, I downloaded a mod for Clear Sky which promised, among many other things, to stop most CTD problems. So, I thought, why not? I downloaded it and installed it, but didn't try starting the game.

Today, I thought I'd start playing Shadow of Chernobyl, so I went back to the site to download the equivalent mod for SoC, from the link below:

STALKER Complete 2009 1.4.4 .exe [recommended] download - Mod DB

Now, SoC won't start. The opening cinematic plays okay, the ASUS stuff, etc., then the screen just goes black and stays that way, until you hit Esc, and it just returns to desktop without any error message or anything.

I tried uninstalling it and reinstalling it, no joy. Same thing happens. I've tried looking in program files for the mod to try and get rid of it, but I can't find it.

All-in-all, I'm thoroughly hacked off by the whole circus.

'Elp?!

I managed to get the game working again, just went in and deleted the game data folder, then reinstalled. It works fine now.

However. I want to install that mod.

In order to install that mod, I have to patch the game.

I can't patch the game, because the patch .exe won't do anything. Double-click, the icon appears on the taskbar for a second or two, then vanishes. I've tried running in administrator mode, in XP Compatibility mode, nothing. Just the same damp squib.

Any ideas, folksies?