Conflict Desert Storm II won't load

Right, I have the 'Sold Out' PC version of CDS2 for PC, but the official version for PS2 and Xbox.
I'm sure I managed to run it on this PC before, but it won't now. I installed it, put disc 1 back in, clicked on the desktop icon. The small launcher bit for it with 'play', 'settings' and 'quit' loaded, and I clicked 'Play'. The screen flickers as if it's changing the resolution for the game, as is normal, then the screen goes black. Not off, just black. Then, a dark sand-coloured thin border appears around the edge of the screen. Now, I know my laptop has rather outdated specs, but this is rather an outdated game I also tried it on a friend's new Dell laptop, also running windows 7, and exactly the same thing occurred. I have tried it in compatibility mode, same issue still. Any ideas?

Were you running XP at the time? Windows 7 and 512MB doesn't go far......I hope that your Windows 7 is a retail copy...

'retail' as in didn't come installed on it? yeah, I bought the discs later , as the laptop is from 2005. It is surprisingly powerful for the meagre specs it has, but yeah, Windows 7 was a mistake for it (I just can't face going back to XP as it seems so old and featureless now). I remember back when I was scrounging around the internet in 2009 to get an extra 256MB stick so that the installer would let me install it
CDS2 wants: 1GHZ CPU, 128MB RAM and 32MB VRAM, but yeah, it may have been XP that I remember it running on. I did have difficulties trying to get Worms Armageddon to run on W7 on this laptop, so yeah, maybe 2003 is just too old :/

At idle my Windows 7 uses about 1.2 gigs of ram/out of six total.....sounds like it can't load everything...do any newer games work?

Stateside when you buy a Windows OS it comes in two flavors....OEM and Retail.....Retail can be installed on as many machines as you like....as long as it's only on one at a time/OEM during activation is tied to the motherboard of the machine, and in theory can't be used on another machine....unless you are good at telling sad stories(to Microsoft).

yeah, the RAM usage on this is constantly at about 75% or higher when idle :/ GTA: San Andreas kind of works, it runs, but even on the lowest settings it's rather poor. GTA: Vice City runs fine (until I messed it up accidentally). The original Mafia game runs smoothly, Medal of Honor: Allied Assault runs nearly smoothly (but does freeze for long periods sometimes) and lastly, The Sims 2 runs, but is extremely slow at loading everything (houses, neighbourhoods) and can get rather laggy. The Sims 3 and GTA4 don't run at all (because of the graphics card). Lego Star Wars (the first one) never ran on any machine I've owned and Tomb Raider runs okay-ish (but slowly).
yeah, I went for this retail one Microsoft Windows 7 Professional, Full Version (PC DVD), 1 User: Amazon.co.uk: Software rather than the sightly cheaper upgrade version as there was no unique data from XP that hadn't already been backed up, and with just a 40GB internal HDD, a clean wipe was the best option.

Yep, sounds like a ram problem.....in theory it can run two 1GB sticks PC2700 DDR SODIMM...in practice finding ram that will work can be very hit or miss......Here is some from EBay that may, or may not work:NEW 1GB PC2700 200PIN SODIMM FOR NOTEBOOK/LAPTOP DDR333 | eBay

Thanks for finding that

Thank me AFTER it works.....

haha, I guess so