One additional thought--in a different forum or thread, can't remember where, a guy claimed the last Windows update had messed up his gaming. He was trying to work with MS I believe for help. That is something that never occured to me.

CTD
 

The "other guy" was me. Ive tried everything mentioned...re-install SHIV (and Sniper Elite..no mods)...without mods...with mods...with only TMO and RSRD...and the problem persists. I have yet to get response from MS...and am beginning to suspect I never will. SH IV is a great sim....up until the action starts...it then becomes worse than worthless. Wonder if Ubi could delve into the technical end...or some of our computer literate super community.
I run a Radeon Vidio/Creative sound card on a jacked up DELL Gen 3 XPS...with Windows XP Home.

That is very strange. If you ever figure it out be sure to let us know what happened.