I have tried essentially everything suggested in the mutliple threads (I am running an R9 5900 (stock) + EVGA 3090, 64GB RAM so it cannot be a hardware issue, everything works fine in BF V or any other game):
-reinstalling/verifying files
-installing on my C:/ drive instead of secondary drive
- running as admin (EAC installer, bf2042.exe and EAC launcher)
- few other steps, such as enforcing verified drivers, reinstalling drivers etc. from a troubleshooting page
I am 99% sure it's some stupid false positive with the anti cheat of course.
I managed to get from basically no errors, to sometimes getting this:
Application popup: BF2042.exe - Application Error : The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000142). Click OK to close the application.
Curiously sometimes I get a popup with the title "windows explorer" saying "Easy anti cheat untrusted system file (c:windows/system32/combase.dll)
and sometimes I see an EAC generic error linking to the generic troubleshooting page.
** Now I do have to add that I am running the Windows insider/developer preview build, so not the latest stable, I am really hoping that is the case. I've turned off the dev preview so I'll be back to the normal build once it's released as stable.