If you tried to play Single player or Multiplayer and the game seems to iniciate but only appears one black screen or the intro logo, before trying any other solution wait 30 seconds or one minute because in Windows 8.1 (and in some cases in other OS) sometimes it takes time to start the game.

1.

Go to properties on Call of Duty 2 at the Steam Library (right click on the name of the game):
Verify Integrity of Game Cache and uncheck Steam Overlay.

2.

Go to Steam --> Settings --> In-Game and uncheck Steam Overlay.

3.

Copy the Steam.dll and Steam2.dll files from the Steam folder to the Call of Duty 2 folder.
COPY, not PASS.

2.

Put DirectX 7 in options inside de game.
Do not choose DirectX9 (it has some bugs on some OS, but you can try if it works fine on your computer). Never try DirectxX10 because the game has a lot of problems with it, at least nowadays.

3.

Go to properties (right click) of files COD2MP_s and COD2SP_s at the Call of Duty 2 folder:
Set compatibility with Windows XP SP3 and put both of them running like administrator.

4.

Turn ON at least one microphone device (I put the others off):
Panel control--> Sound --> Recording Devices

5.

I did this, I don't know if it's dispensable or not:
Connect another microphone or headphone to the computer on the usb port for microphones.
Usually people have two, one green where you put your headphones and another pink where you put your microphone. (I put another headphones on the pink and it worked... so I think it doesn't need to be a mic per se). Normally it's called the frontal pannel connector.

Also I found that some people fixed it by turning OFF all de Recording Devices, but when I did that I ran the game and instantly I had the problem "COD2MP_s stopped working", so I turned ON only one microphone device on Panel Control-->Sound and everything was ok.

Even in some OS the game will work by turning ON all of them.

1.

Download THIS[web.archive.org]and extract it into the installation folder.
Make a backup copy of your CoD2SP_s.exe since we are going to be altering it.
Open a cmd window and move to the installation folder.
Enter this command: imagecfg -u CoD2SP_s.exe
If it worked you should see a little report saying the affinity has been set to a single processor.
The -u switch makes the application only run in uni-processor mode.

NOTE: If multiplayer doesn't work simply repeat the steps for CoD2MP_s.exe.

2.

If the game doesn't start at all and crashes:

If you have installed MSI Afterburner deactivate it.

1.

Go to Call of Duty 2 folder --> CoD2MP_s.exe and Cod2SP_s.exe --> Right click --> Properties--> Compatibility --> Set run as administrator and put compatibility with Windows XP SP3.

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if that didn't work, try:

2.

Modify the game's configuration file manually with a text editor. Go to:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\SteamApps\common\Call of Duty 2\main\players\"YOUR NAME"

Open the "config" file with the notepad (it is usually installed by default on Windows, if you don't have it just download it from somewhere). Look through the text until you find the resolution. Just edit it, save it and close it. It should be fine now.

1.

Verify that you have the latest version installed of Call of Duty 2 (v1.3) and that the punkbuster is updated. Also:

- Go to properties on Call of Duty 2 at the Steam Library.
Uncheck Steam Overlay.
- Go to Steam --> Settings --> In-Game and uncheck Steam Overlay.

If you see that message try this:

1.

Go to Steam folder --> Copy the Steam.dll file and paste it into the Call of Duty 2 folder. COPY.
And don't DELETE it from the Steam folder.

If that didn't work try copying also the Steam2.dll file from the Steam folder to the Call of Duty 2 folder.

1

On Panel Control --> Sound --> Recording Devices

Check "Show disabled devices" and "Show disconnected devices".

Do you have all the devices in OFF?
Change one of them (the microphone) to ON and the others to OFF.
Also if you have one device called Stereo, enable it.

2.

Another fix is just plugging in your mic or another headphone into the front panel connector.


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If that two things didn't work, try:

3.

Run as administrator, give explicit permissions in Firewall for CoD2MP.exe, punkbuster ,etc...
Run the game in safe mode.

4.

UAC (User Account Control) --> Set to never notify.

If you still have crashes when you're playing Multiplayer in Call of Duty 2, try this:

1.

Go to Control Panel --> Sound --> Recording Devices --> Deactivated all of them.

2.

If you have Windows Vista and the number 1 didn't work, try to instead of deactivated all of them, activated all of them.

There are some serious problems between the game running in DirectX 10, and even in DirectX 9 (specially if you are using Windows Vista). So I would recommend for people who can't play in DX10 and DX9:

1.

Start your Call of Duty 2 game
Go to Options
Go to Graphics
Put the game running in Directx 7

This may affect the graphics quality but the game should run well.

I found that this problem hasn't been fixed by Activision.

The only two recommendations are:

1.

Run the game as administrator.

2.

Put Steam and it's related content on the drive that has more gb on your computer, you wont have to worry about disk space for steam games for quite a while. To do that all you have to do is uninstall Steam and install it again, but this time when it asks if you want a typical install or custom, you choose custom. You will then be given the option of installing to a directory of your choice, and then you should choose the "bigger" drive. This has fixed this problem for some Mac users, even if it sounds ridiculous.
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If at the end nothing of this fixed your game the only two solutions would be search more info in Google (I didn't find anything that worked) or call to the costumer service from Activision.

NOTE --> If you have differents problems with MAC, search on Youtube.
I have seen some tutorials that solved problems with graphics and stuff like that.
I don't put any of them here because maybe one won't work for everybody.

This information has been taken from the Lifewire website to help Steam users dealing with this kind of error. Since in the beginning in this guide it was provided a program that fixed dll problems and it doesn't work anymore, I give you this steps that should work as well as that:

Dsound.dll issues are caused in one way or another by an issue with Microsoft DirectX.

The dsound.dll file is one of many files contained in the DirectX software collection. Since DirectX is utilized by most Windows-based games and advanced graphics programs, dsound.dll errors usually show up only when using these programs. Any of Microsoft's operating systems since Windows 98 may be affected by dsound.dll and other DirectX issues. This includes Windows 11, 10, 8, etc. There are several ways dsound.dll errors can show up on your computer. The error is usually seen when the game is started. Here are some of the more common error messages you might see:

- The file dsound.dll is missing
- Dsound.DLL Not Found
- File dsound.dll not found
- Dsound.dll not found. Reinstalling might help fix this.
- Failed to load library: DSOUND.dll

How to Fix Dsound.dll Errors

1.Restart your computer if you haven't yet. The dsound.dll error might be a fluke and a simple restart could clear it up completely.

2.Install the latest version of Microsoft DirectX. Chances are, upgrading to the latest version will fix the dsound.dll not found error.

3.Microsoft often releases updates to DirectX without updating the version number or letter, so be sure to install the latest release even if your version is technically the same.

4.Reinstall the game or software program. Something might have happened to the program files that work with dsound.dll and a reinstall could do the trick.

5.Restore the dsound.dll file from the latest DirectX software package. If the above troubleshooting steps haven't worked to solve your error, try extracting the DLL file individually from the DirectX downloadable package.

6.Update the drivers for your video card. While it's not the most common solution, in some situations updating the drivers for the video card in your computer could correct this DirectX issue.

7.Run System Restore to restore your computer to a point in time when the error wasn't occurring. If you're able to, this should restore the file and fix the errors.

A lot of people play the game with a 32bits PC. When they change to 64bits the game stops working so they think that's a problem inherent to the game. But that's not true.

I have played Call of Duty 2 from Steam with 64bits computers (Windows 7 and Windows 10) and the game works perfectly. The solution would be to uninstall the game and install it again. Then you need to follow the General Fixes procedure from this guide.

This problem appears because when you change from 32bits to 64bits (or viceversa) some files change or may be affected in one way or another.

NOTE: If it still doesn't work for you, instead of reinstalling the game try reinstalling Steam.

This is a difficult problem to solve. The only possible solution that I found is:

Try pressing CTRL+SHIFT+ESC when you're on the game menu and in the Applications select COD2, right click on it and now click where it says Maximize.

I found this from the Steam user @Hellzilla posted on 2013, hope it helps:

Try to change resolution in the config.cfg file. Solved my COD 2 startup crashes.

Find the file in your Steam install folder, commonly...

C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Call of Duty 2\main\players\PlayerName\config.cfg.

Open config.cfg with Notepad. Find "seta r_mode" and change the value to your resolution.

Example:
I changed seta r_mode "640x480" to seta r_mode "1920x1080"

Just reinstall it. It's the only solution.

i found this solution on the forum here in Steam, it's from @Ryzen_Mike .
All honors to him, who is the one who found the solution. Here it is:

https://www.moddb.com/downloads/call-of-duty-2-single-player-improvement

There are 2 files in the RAR archive:
One replaces the original .exe
The other one is a replacement dll file.

"This is a modified CoD2SP_s.exe (v1.2 latest version) executable for Call of Duty 2 single player where the console is enabled by default, field of view (fov) is changed from the default 80 to 90 and the nocd patch is applied. Also included is a modified gfx_d3d_x86_s.dll where r_lodBias (level of detail) is changed to the max distance which prevents all those annoying visual pop-ups in the distance."

If you have and AMD Graphic card --> Turn your Antialiasing off in the graphics settings.

If that didn't work try changing to DirectX 7 or DirectX 9, depending on your graphic card.