If you have installed from a copy of the Ultimate Edition, then Awakening should have installed during the process. To play the game from a CD Copy, everything I have read indicates that you must have the first Dragon Age: Origins disc in the drive to launch the game. That is the disc it looks to to validate. The Awakening DLC is just an add-on expansion to the original campaign. As I have a digital download copy I purchased from an online retailer years ago, I never ran into this issue personally, though, so I cannot confirm that from experience.
Another possibility is if you have the Origin client installed and the key for the Ultimate Edition is registered to your Origin account, if you click on the game tile in your "My Games" tab, it should show the "Play" option rather than "Add to Download Queue" if Origin recognises the game's installation path from your Windows 7 registry. If that is the case, then if you check the add-on content listed below the main game information, it will offer you the option to download any of the UE DLC that you might be missing and it will then install it for you.
You could also try right-clicking on the game tile and selecting "Repair Game" and the Origin client will verify your installation and the files, apply any needed patches, and your game should then run properly. If you find that it is still missing Awakenings for some reason, it could be that the "Expansion Code" that came with the UE did not get properly registered to your account along with the serial number for the Ultimate Edition - in which case, you should check with Origin tech support via email, chat, or phone, and they should be able to attach whatever DLC is not showing up to your account so that it will validate properly once they verify your serial key for the Ultimate Edition.
If you wish to check whether all of the UE DLC is properly credited to your Origin ID, you can try logging in to:
https://social.bioware.com/user_entitlements.php
using your Origin ID and there should be a list of all of the DLC that is registered to you. If something is missing, Origin tech support has, in my experience, been very good about getting it fixed in short order.
So, the copy I ordered from Amazon must have been bad because Awakening never installed. I chatted with tech support and they were most helpful. I had to download the origin software, then the Awakening expension.
My game never ran again.
So twenty-five for the game and sixty in internet data charges. I am pretty heartbroken, but I do need to find something better to with my time, for certain.
