Bioshock crashes at start up

[Flying dude]

I bought bioshock just when it came out (US retail version) and it used to work fine. Though, I noticed after installing McAfee, it would crash whenever I tried to start it. So I uninstalled McAfee (I think it caused some other problems too...) and tried running bioshock again...yet it crashes before even starting with that error reporting screen 'bioshock.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience.'

Here is the error signature:
AppName: bioshock.exe AppVer: 1.0.0.0 ModName: bioshock.exe
ModVer: 1.0.0.0 Offset: 003af7c2

I called tech support and maybe after 3 hours we didn't get anywhere...they said they dont' know why it is doing this and said they would e-mail some software tools or something to try to fix it...which was about 5 months ago, and I still haven't recieved them. I've installed allt he lastest drivers and patches...re-installed the game about 50 times (in and out of safe-mode) and it still doesn't work...'BSAutoRun.exe' doesn't even work. I know lots of other people have had a problem like mine, but I'm not sure if mine is different in some way.

Here are my specs:
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254)
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4600+, MMX, 3DNow (2 CPUs), ~2.4GHz
Memory: 2046MB RAM
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.2180 32bit Unicode
Graphics Card Name : Nvidia Geforce 8600 GT
Graphics Card Memory : 256MB

Would really appreciate the help thanks.

[Flying dude]

No one has any ideas....?

[Constantine]

Got bioshock to work after the following i was having the similar crashing problem during startup.

Uninstalled video drivers completely and removed all entries
To remove goto add and remove software and unistall all ATI entries.
After unistall use cccleaner & then delette any directorys or folders left behind.
You'll have to reboot during the uninstall process.
Once you've removed the drivers install the proper drivers.

Can find them here ATI Link, and Nvidia Link

DirectX
Reinstalled latest Directx 9.0c Link

Bioshock
Uninstalled bioshock & reinstalled the game

I didn't install the patch this time either.

Game works now with no crash

my specs
q6600 g0
asus blitz formula
kingston hyper x ram DDR2 PC26400 1gb
Westerd Digital hdd raptor X 150gb
ATI x1950 xtx
ATI TV wonder pro
ASUS lightscribe DVD burner
Zalman cnps9700
Thermaltake toughpower 750 watt
Dell 24" Monitor

WinXPpro (sp2)
ATI catalyst 8.3
reso @ 1920 x 1200

worked for me

[Flying dude]

Ah, I'll see if I can try this tomorrow, thanks for the info