I have tried everything i can think of at this point and am getting really frustrated. I deleted the ddraw.dll file. I tried the Force DirectDraw thing. I turned off the Gamebar. I uninstalled and reinstalled probably about 5+ times. I tried to change the launch settings. I disabled DirectPlay. I changed the config launch options. I reinstalled the files from my C: drive to my D: drive. I turned off my antivirus. NOTHING has worked. My game won't even open at all. My fans don't turn on like they do when I boot a game up, it's like I'm clicking on nothing. I can't figure out how to turn run as an admin off, doesn't seem to let me change that. All I get is the "do you want to let this app make changes to your drive" pop up from needing to run as an admin every time. I hit yes, just like i always have since i ever got this game, but unlike before, where it would then boot up, nothing happens. No fans, no pop up, no spinning next to my arrow. I have tried literally every fix I could find, but nothing seems to work. Unless it takes 3+ minutes to boot up on my computer which it shouldn't (it used to boot up in like 10-30 seconds max) I don't know what's wrong. The ONLY things i have found that seemed a little weird was:

a. Can't find Icewind Dale 2 or GOG on the windows FireWall thing. Not disabled, not on, just missing.

b. Got a pop up saying that the ddraw.dll fix files were corrupted/messed up in someway. After i reinstalled it for a third time this went away, so i assumed i fixed that

PLEASE i need help ASAP. This game was my childhood and i just found all my old saves that I played on my old laptop. Game from old laptop was still the one I bought from here, but that computer got messed up a bit so i had to restart on my current laptop. Used to work just fine, I played a little but was sad I lost my old saves. Now that i have them again i just want to play.

I wanted to ask a further question, but this original post does not even contain the operating system that the user has, let alone any hardware information or error quotations as a starting point. If you are still trying to play this game, can you post those?

I am on Windows 10. I don't get any error message, I click on the icon to run the game and nothing happens. Still haven't been able to get it to run. I never had any problems before it just suddenly stopped working one day. If you need more information I can post it, but I honestly have no idea what to tell you in regard to hardware information. I'm not extremely tech savvy to be honest. Sorry I was missing infomation

---UPDATE-----
ok so I literally just reinstalled the game for like the fiftieth time to see if it would give me an error code and NOW it runs if i open it using the gog app, which didn't used to work. I honestly have no idea why it wasn't working, fml man. I'm so confused but whatever. I guess the code and my computer just decided to work again after like 5 months of just giving up asdfghjkl

idk maybe I'm just actually an idiot, but i seriously tried everything I could think of back when i first posted and nothing fixed it

Ok, I've found the solution.

First of all start the game in windowed mode by using the config.exe in the game folder, and after the 1st launch you ll be enable to activate and play in full screen mode.

Playing on Win 10 x64

*** PLEASE POST THIS FIX TO USERS THAT NEED HELP IF IT WORKED FOR YOU FOR VISIBILITY ***

There's a project called cnc-draw on Github that seeks to modernize DirectDraw/GDI/OpenGL/D3D9 rendering for 90s/early 2000s games. The author of the project has created a version of ddraw.dll that should fix many of the performance, rendering, and crash/freeze issues of games like IWD 2 for Windows 10.

Download latest version of cnc-ddraw and extract to IWD 2 Folder - github.com/CnCNet/cnc-ddraw/releases
(Just use the latest version and ignore the following step if there is a release after 4/15/2021; likely changes are integrated)
Overwrite ddraw.dll w/ this dll - github.com/CnCNet/cnc-ddraw/files/6369974/ddraw.zip
Edit ddraw.ini for your resolution, borderless windowed, shader preference, etc.
Disable any Compatibility Modes

There are also additional patches for Widescreen and UI:

G3 Widescreen: gibberlings3.net/mods/tools/widescreen/
UI Centering Patch: sorcerers.net/community/threads/icewind-dale-2-widescreen-ui.68556/
Bigger Fonts: shsforums.net/topic/38626-bigger-fonts-for-bgiitob-and-other-ie-games/

There is also a similar project DDrawCompat: github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat

It's also possible to enable the old DirectDraw via Windows Features currently, although there is no guarantee that this legacy feature won't exist in future versions of Windows.

Deleting ddraw.dll from the game folder can also sometimes fix the issue (Perhaps the renderer falls back on GDI?), but it's a very hacky and non-performant fix that might not work in the future.

IWD2 Fix Thread: github.com/CnCNet/cnc-ddraw/issues/87

This solved my issues immediately. Thank you very much!

The widescreen was a complete bust. It refuses to recognize the game directory. Probably because it's on the D drive. The DDraw.zip works. Thanks!!! Putting this one on my external drive. Two thumbs up.