Call of Duty 4 - DirectX Error & Game Won't Start

[Apoptosis]

Well I went out and picked up the full copy of Call of Duty 4, installed it on a clean Vista Ultimate 64-bit installation and it doesn't launch... Anyone heard of this? I looked at the ReadMe file and it said this:

V. KNOWN ISSUES
---------------
DIRECTX CRASH AT LAUNCH
If you encounter the following error: "This application has failed to start because d3dx9_34.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix the problem." Try installing the latest version of DirectX 9.0c (found on the game disc, or http://www.microsoft.com)

CRASH WITH REALTEK ONBOARD SOUND CARDS
Users with Realtek(TM) onboard sound cards and Windows(R) Vista will need to use Microsoft Audio Drivers 6.0, which can be found at http://www.microsoft.com

My DirectX error isn't the same as that... and I am running 6.0 and above drivers... not the 5.X that comes on Vista... GRRRR... I'm now downloading the 77 Windows Updates this new system needs... I already did the NVIDIA hotfixes by the way...
if you are running Vista and an onboard Realtek audio controller to make sure

[dgood]

No idea, i'm running XP and it ran fine on my computer. Installed it froma friends disk, and mine should be arriving at my house on monday, since I won't be home until then to get it anyway. Good luck with that, as it's a good mp experiance.

[FZ1]

Ran fine for me on XP too. Finished the game today (it's wicked short). The best part was when you are in the plane giving overhead fire support with the cannon. DEATH FROM ABOVE!

[Apoptosis]

was a driver issue... the nvidia driver didn't install correctly... removed it and re-installed 169.12 beta drivers and all is good to go.

[Major_A]

I see you corrected the problem but I encountered a similar problem when I was briefly running Vista. I installed Vista and then went to play a game and got all kinds of DX9 errors. I assumed that Vista had DX9 installed but I eventually had to download the DX9 update pack to play the game.

Side note: I hope they come out with Call of Duty 5: Spectre Gunship. That was the most fun I've had playing a game in a very long time.