Bioshock hard locking on launch

[Symbiote]

If anyone can help me out here I would really appreciate it, I have posted on the steam forums but no one there has a clue. And my problem seems distinct to other peoples', who at least get the splash screen, or through half a level before the graphics cut out and it drops to desktop - for me, touching the EXE locks up my whole PC and I have to reboot.

No matter what I do, running bioshock, even running the bioshock uninstaller, hard crashes my PC. By hard crash, I mean the desktop graphics freeze entirely, the audio repeats the previous 0.1 of a second repeatedly, and no button aside from resetting on the case does anything.

8800 GTS
e4300 dual core
965P-DS3 mobo
2gb ram
Vista 64
Steam version of Bioshock

I have tried:
163.44 drivers, reinstalled several times
DirectX updates
Running as admin, XP compatibility mode, DX9 mode, every other option on how to run it.
Running direct from folder, rather than through steam, again trying all possible options.
Disabling sound devices on my PC.
Redownloading the entire thing and reinstalling steam - twice.
Uninstalling the C++ libraries.

But no matter what, I get the same crash. I don't understand why my problem is different to everyone elses, who at least get a screen saying "bioshock.exe has stopped responding" and maybe see the splash screen first. What causes a hard lock of an entire vista system? This has never happened with any other game.

[IroquoisPliskin]

I am having a similar problem, but not to that extreme. Once the game starts to load I get the Windows error message. I have done nearly everything that I can think of to try to fix it, but with no results.

[homernoy]

Do you by chance use AVG antivirus?

[Symbiote]

I have no antivirus software installed, I have also disabled UAC and the windows firewall in a vain attempt to get this game to function.

[homernoy]

Are you able to get Windows Update to work? I am asking because I had one hell of a time fixing this on my Vista machine. Now I am having one hell of a time as well, just good instead of bad.

[Symbiote]

Windows update works fine for me, about once a week it dumps a whole bunch of updates MS has decided to produce onto my PC, that thing yeh?

I have no technical issues aside from this particular game.

[IroquoisPliskin]

I have AVG on my computer, and I closed it down. I even went through Task Manager, and made sure. Even still, it won't load. I don't understand really. It was working fine for the first few days until yesterday when this all started. I did update AVG, and what not, but that wouldn't effect it when the program isn't running.

[skidme]

I am having this exact problem! I'm running Vista 32 bit, beta Nvidia drivers.

I have 8800 GTS, and an FX-55 AMD 64. I hope they patch this soon....I have school next week, and then I can't play it until Thanksgiving.

[homernoy]

This sounds really goofy, but I have had similar problems in the past when my video card was not seated properly. I am sure yours is, but it is worth a look. Do you have any hardware or software that Vista says it does'nt like, but it still runs fine? Again, overclocking seems to be a problem with this game.

[Symbiote]

Ok when I get home I am try disabling tablet services before I demand a refund on this POS programmed game.

[the_hirsch]

I'm having the same problems. I got it through Steam (who wont help with anything!) and it wont work, it shows the splash, then crashes. Same stuff happens for the demo in steam. downloading the demo not from steam now to see if it is a steam problem. This is making so sad, cause all my friends are enjoying it, yet i can't. However, I put it on my laptop (running xp instead of vista) and it works fine, but I don't have the laptop for gaming, so its not going to work for me.

[Archane]

Exact same issue here, except I am using XP32.
I have a XEON Quad x3210 Kentsfield, 2GB of Crucial DDR28500, and an XFX8800GTS.

I'm gonna try to figure out the issue through a crash dump, I know my memory timings are off (a lot higher than SPD) but if anything that would make my system run more stable. Running Sandra 07 stability tests, my cpu doesn't flinch. I need to stress-test my vid card but i don't think that could be issue.

[wildheart]

If any of you have Daemon Tools installed on your PC then uninstall it. I was getting a similar problem with a Blue Screen Of Death crash whenever I tried to start the game. I uninstalled Daemon Tools and it works perfectly now.

[Archane]

I have uGuru installed, I don't think its caused too many issues, at least with stress tests. But I'm not sure if that could be causing the issue. Out of curiosity, does anyone else play this game on a IP35 Pro or E?