What is the issue that prevents playing? That part isn't obvious, becuase many people are running both Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 on both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows just fine. (Myself being one of them.)
Same as on Windows 7, in the desktop shortcut for launching specifically Battlefield 1942 (BF1942.EXE), regardless of whether you have an Origin-based installation of Battlefield 1942 or a CD-based installation of Battlefield 1942, you seen to right-click on the shortcut and select "Properties". Then in the "Compatibility" tab select "Run this program in compatibility mode for: Windows XP (Service Pack 3)" and then ALSO the "Run this program as an administrator" option that exists on that same tab. Without this, my experience on both Windows 7 and Windows 8.x was that the game would run, but you would frequently encounter cases where the game would crash.
I'm not saying that's necessarily your issue; just definitely something that is recommended if you haven't already done it. There could be some more specific incompatibility between the older version of DirectX interface Battlefield uses and your particular video card or driver, or something else giving you a persistent failure even though the Battlefield 1942 game itself is not fundamentially incompatible with Windows 8.x or Windows 64-bit.
-Trench
