Error code 56 when trying to launch

[dwarfaxe]

I just purchased this today from Steam. It installed fine, but when I run it from within the Steam client I get an error code 56. If I run BGEE.EXE directly, I get "Application load error 8:0000065559". I tried manually installing OpenAL, rebooting, closing Steam, etc. all to no avail.

My computer info:

HP 8710W laptop
Intel Core 2 Duo T9500 2.6GHz
4GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 1600M
Windows 2000 SP4 (with unofficial patches from MSFN that, among other things, let the Steam client run -- I know the patches are good because I made them myself)

I tried looking in Event Viewer, but there isn't anything there, and checking Steam and BGEE in Dependency Walker doesn't show any problems -- as far as I can tell, my OS should satisfy any API dependencies.

Stumped...

[dwarfaxe]

Still no progress. Can someone at Valve at least tell me what error code 56 means?