thanks for the reply. I already tried administrator and desktop composition suggestions - they're listed in the link I pasted. Now I did everything Larian_QA said in that "Black Screen of Death" link you posted, including upgrading to latest Nvidia drivers, latest Physx software and going all the way down to 720x480 resolution, which is the lowest available for wide screen monitors - didn't fix the problem

Problem occurs in the same location every time
Any other suggestions would be very much appreciated