How do you mean that using the patch was tricky?
Maybe I missed another post somewhere about Ankh running on Windows 7, but this old thread was all I found. I thought I'd give a little bit more info for the Windows 7 and Games list.
I have Ankh: Reverse the Curse CD, bought awhile back on Amazon. It's the Viva Media version which is suppose to be free of StarForce. I had it running on my XP machine, but had never finished the game, so I tried to install it on my Win 7. The game didn't run when I first installed it, got stuck on the Deck13 loading screen.
But I did get it to run, and have spent some time in-game with no problems. To get Ankh to work, here's what I did. First, I set it to run in Win XP (Service Pack 3) compatibility mode. Then I downloaded the Vista patch from Game Front:
Vista Patch for Ankh The patch is basically one file, audiere.dll, which you switch out for the default file found (on my computer) in C:\Program Files (x86)\Ankh\bin\release. I removed the old file to a backup spot, and then just copied over the new file I had downloaded in its place.
Heads-up: the readme (Lisez-moi) and description for this patch is in French, but it's listed for the French or English games. The readme says it's for Vista 32 bit. I'm running Win 7 64 bit, but using XP compatibility mode along with the new file worked. I had to use both the file and XP mode though; neither worked on its own.
Maybe this solution would work with Win 8 too.