Age of Empires II HD doesn't launch on startup

[Ajom]

Hi,

I'm hoping this is the right place to ask a technical question. I haven't been able to play this game through Steam in a very long time. When I launch the game with the default launcher.exe file, it displays the startup menu with the options 'Play', 'Workshop', 'Aoe Website', etc. As soon as I click Play, the program crashes silently. If I launch the game via the "AoK HD.exe" file, I get the following error:

"AoK HD.exe - Bad Image : C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\d3dx9_43.dll is either not designed to run on Windows or it contains an error. Try installing the program again using the original installation media or contact your system administrator or the software vendor for support. Error status 0xc000012f."

I am on a Windows 10 pc, with hardware well above the system requirements for this game. Any help is greatly appreciated, as I grew up with this game and it's been a favorite of mine for many years. Thanks!

[-Dare Devil/x/]

-In the pinned guide, try the section that talks about C++.