Played SH3 v1.4b in Windows XP, Windows 7 x64 and Windows 8.1 x64 without problem so far all these years.
I've just installed original stock SH3 in my old Windows XP-based computer, then compressed it to RAR (less than 1 Gigabyte). Used a pendrive to keep the big file. Then moved it to 8.1 and decompressed it to the system root directory (C

. Also to a data partition, without problem.
I think all the fuss when trying to install SH3 are because of a protected .exe and their associated files or having a steamk version of the game.