I assume everyone here is familiar with the bug where a fresh install of a BFME game will just crash to desktop at every start. Starting with Windows Vista(?), the games do not correctly create their options file in %APPDATA%\<(insert BFME game name directory here)>\ at first launch. The solution has been to simply copy a known-good pre-created version of that file into the appropriate place, giving the game the options it needs to start.
Most of these pre-created copies though contain much more predefined options than are strictly necessary to simply start the game up for the first time. They're not "clean" like how the file was originally generated by the games on Windows XP. So to satisfy my curiosity, I installed and launched the games in a Windows XP virtual machine to see the options files properly generated. Turns out all three of the BFME games only need the same five lines of options to start up, copied below with their default values.
AudioLOD = High FixedStaticGameLOD = VeryLow IdealStaticGameLOD = VeryLow Resolution = 800 600 StaticGameLOD = VeryLow
