I finally got it working.

I was pretty much unable to load the campaign/strategy map. It would show the progress bar and then crash to the desktop (as others here have described). I tried all the stuff listed in the forums and the support site (setting resolution down, updating drivers, no programs running, etc) - nothing worked.

Until yesterday, I read here, in this thread (way near the end I think) to ROLL BACK VIDEO DRIVERS.

I have Nvidia GeForce 2 - using the windows driver "rollback" function I returned to an earlier set of drivers (went from 66xx to 55xx or something). POOF - problem completely solved.

No problem now in transition to campaign mode any more. Now I can actually play the game (campaign mode that is)

Now I can understand some folks not wanting to do this because of other games and the impact - if it screws up EQ for me, I'll have to undo to it

--> but it is super easy to do using the Windows Rollback function (in the properties window for your graphics device there should be a tab for "driver" under that tab you can manage your device drivers and roll them back if need be)

I just wanted to thank the folks here who pointed this out - as well as to reinforce that this is a pretty simple fix if you are as frustrated as I was.

Cheers.