Windows 7: Can't run any games properly on Win 7 Ult x64

I'd recently clean installed windows 7 64-bit on my 1 year old system. Everythings' great except for gaming. I tried running COD4 which is suppose to play nice with 7 according to Microsoft but it just couldn't last more than 5 minutes on single player mode. It just keeps crashing. I haven't tried multiplayer as I knew you have to apply a patch before able to run punkbusters. Anyway, I'd uninstalled the game and install it with all the lastest patches (up to 1.7). But still it crashes. Every time the crash is a nasty one, meaning I can't use Contro+Alt+Del go back to the desktop but have to hard reset the machine. I'd tried running Prototype as well, it lasted a bit longer but still hard crashes. All of my graphic drivers and BIOS were up to date and I still can't think of any reasons for the crash. I'd even turn off overclocking and run it on stock speed. As a note, all those games plus many others were running great on the same system with Vista Ultimate x64. Any logical solutions would be much appreciated.

You might check to make sure you have directx 9 installed, and that you have the old c++ libraries. In my install of Windows 7 those were missing and a lot of games wouldn't work because of it. Otherwise it sounds like a driver error but you say you're all up to date, so that's all i can think of.

if you still have issues, you may have to try different versions of your graphics drivers.

Well it couldn't be that your diretx is out of date since directx 11 comes with windows 7. What I would suggest is first making sure your video cards are compatible with Windows 7. Check the manufacturer's site. Try uninstalling and then reinstalling your drivers. Also, this might be that the windows 7 install didn't work correct and now its erroring out.

no, its not that its out of date per se, its just that he may not have the directx 9 runtime or whatever. afaik, it doesnt come by default in the Windows 7 install, you just get dx11.

Pinstripe, Are you saying that Windows 7 may not run these games (made for directx 9) with the supplied directx 11??
We might ALSO need DirectX 9c (or DirectX 10) runtime installed??

If that is the case then it sure would solve a lot of gaming problems, especially with older games.
I would really like to know the answer to this one.

BTW, here is the DirectX 9c Runtime Download: Download details: DirectX End-User Runtime

I have not tried it yet.

If your COD is crashing try plugging in a Microphone, has worked for many.

I had an error when I first installed CoD4:MW saying that it needed some directX 9 components...after installing the directX 9c runtimes I have no problems running any of my "older" games on Windows 7 x64 HL2, CSS, CoD4, Cod:WaW, CoH, GW, etc.

i've found out--even with vista--one of the first things you should do with a clean install is to go to microsoft's download center and download directx. it will be 9c and somewhere in the area of 70 ~ 80 mb.

Good to know. I posted a link to Directx 9c (4th post above this one) download.

ADDENDUM: For the heck of it, I tried to install it (over my Windows 7 x64 DirectX August09 update)....would not do it....said "a more recent install was detected" and the installer quit.
well...I tried.

yes this is correct , I play a game called Entropia Universe and there are two things I have to update in windows 7 before it will run, the first is the 33.5 MB install of direct x 9.0 and the second is the 32bit version of visual c vcredist_x86.exe , this is because the installer and runtime are still 32 bit and codings not great, even though the game engine is crysis