When I try to launch the game through Steam, it fails without giving an error. When I launch directly from Explorer, it gives an OpenAL32.dll error. I've found old posts mentioning this problem and directing to an official download for the installer, but all the links are broken.

This seems to have happened around the time I upgraded to Windows 11. The game was working before that.

If someone will have the same issue - BG2 EE can't launch. In my case error appear, when I run Baldur.exe file by itself. I got error - 0xc000007b. I had compatibility issue with OpenAL32.dll. I downloaded it from website (in my case, I'm from Poland, so it was KomputerŚwiat). It was version x32 and x64. After install, problem was solved to me.

I tried installing OpenAL, and I even tried placing the file directly into the game's folder. If I put the DLL in the folder, the game will start up, but there won't be any sound.

Did you get sound in the game just from adding the DLL to its folder?