i've had BF2 working fine on my PC and even played last night. Tried to launch today and... wham

"BattlefrontII.exe has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience."

then nothing. i tried reinstalling from the DVD and reinstalling the 1.1 patch but it's the same. Why has it suddenly died? i've scanned my computer for anything dodgy but it's clean. Obviously my system can handle BF2 as i've been playing it for months. Anyone have a clue as to why it could suddenly stop working? Oh, and i've never got the sound working either (works on the launch icon but not in the game).

Specs:
Dual 3.2GHz P4
Windows XP Pro SP2
RAM: 1GB
250GB hard drive
NVidia GeForce FX 5200