So, I've had all five classic Infinity Engine games purchased on my account for some time, seldom have the time to actually play them. I just installed Baldur's Gate: The Original Saga on my new laptop, no mods or anything, just tried to fire it up and the game just shuts down after the introductory movies play. Is there any precedent for that?

What OS are you trying to play the game on? I'm on Windows 10 64-bit and do not experience any crashing.

I am also on Windows 10 64-bit.

Update: Baldur's Gate II works, but regardless of what resolution I set it to, it only takes up half of my screen. What's going on here? Icewind Dale I works just fine.

Is your game in a "Program Files" folder, by any chance? Try reinstalling the game in a folder with a short file path, NOT in C:\ drive, and NOT a Program Files folder. G:\Games\, for example.

A cheap and quick "fix" is to copy the game folder ("Baldur's Gate", probably) to somewhere else, like a E:\ or G:\ drive, then double-clicking BGMain2.exe to launch the game. See if it works.

As for BG2 taking half the screen, I don't know about other cards, but in my case, I have a laptop with an Intel graphics card, so the fix is: right-click on desktop => Graphics Properties => Display => Maintain Aspect Ratio with Override Application Settings checked => Apply. There should be a similar option for other cards, I suppose.

No, I install my games in my Documents folder. I don't know that I have any E: or G: drives... documents is just under "This PC", which looks to be separate from C:, is that right?

The graphics setting fix worked for BG2, fixed it right up. Nice!

Yeah that Documents folder is in the C:\ drive, and the idea is to avoid installing these old games (or any game, as a rule of thumb) in the C:\ drive, because the system protections on folders can get in the way and cause complications.

If you don't have any other drive than C:\, I suggest do a partitioning to split it up into at least two drives, then reinstall the game into the new drive. Just type "partition hard drive win 10" in google and you'll get comprehensive instruction on how to do that. It's quite easy.

You can first try moving the game out of the Documents folder first. Just make a "Games" folder or something in C:\, then cut and paste the game folder into that Games folder. Then run BGMain2.exe, see if it works.

Also, keep in mind that it's best to uninstall/reinstall the game fresh every time you want to move it, rather than copy/cut/paste. As I said, the copypasting is a "quick and cheap" fix, mainly to confirm that the problem really is because of a bad installation location.

If you have a USB flash drive with at least several GB free, you can try copypasting the game folder into the USB then runing BGMain2.exe from the USB, see if it works. In my experience, there shouldn't be a problem, running this old game
from a USB.

Reinstalled in a new folder on my desktop, works now. Thanks.