I am currently running the game with all my drivers updated, using the 1.69 critical rebuild patch in compatibility mode for XP Service pack 3, turned off UAC, made sure the video settings were not messing with anything, downloaded an older version of the C++ and pretty much everything people have suggested here.
However I am still getting crashing issues when I get to choose class for a custom character, textures still appear to be missing, mostly lighting, fires and spell icons/effects. Some characters are also silver so their textures might be missing too.
I have this game on CD, SoU and HotU and really want to get it going again so I can play!