Not sure why that error appears, as I have the most current version of directx. That time, the 'serious error' switched to a 'directx v8 error'. The only thing about my situation that seems unique from other people's is that after the first attempt on replacing the options.ini file with the correct one, the game still crashes, but with a different error. I followed those instructions and disabled some programs on startup through msconfig and task manager, to no avail. I contacted them last night and was told to go into 'msconfig' and safe/clean boot my PC. Since I've done this a few times before, I tried to exhaust every possible alleyway I knew to go down before contacting EA support (for obvious reasons). Running it in any version of Windows XP or Vista did nothing, and neither did running it as an administrator. The screen flashes to black, seems to revert to the desktop, then the game crashes and gives me the infamous 'you have encountered a serious error.' Naturally, I went looking for a solution and found the options.ini fix, which I had used in the past on a previous PC. After downloading it and installing it, the games' shortcut opens and I choose Generals first (although choosing Zero Hour changes nothing).

It pertains particularly to Generals and Zero Hour. I've been trying to work around an issue that many people with the Ultimate Collection seem to be having.

Command and conquer 3 crash on startup