Vista - Directx WONT INSTALL- HELP PLZZZZ

Ok, so I really want to run far cry 2 and cod 5 beta, but I keep getting this when I install Directx 9 or 10: An internal system error occurred. Please refer to DXError.log and DirectX.log in your Windows folder to determine problem


Of course I DONT even have those logs. Not only that BUT I ALSO GET THIS WHEN I RUN FAR CRY 2: This application has failed to start because d3dx9_38.dll was not found. Re-installing the application may fix this problem.

I realize this has to do with directx, so I download directx 10 and it fails because of the error message I put at the start of this post. So I try 9 as well and I get the same message. I also get all the cabinet files for august 2008 and april, etc. And sometimes it says they may be corrupt or have low memory when i try to extract it to System 32.

Now I have 1TB of a hard drive, 4 GB of ram, NVIDIA Geforce 8800 and 3.06 GHZ. I know I have enough memory and I just instralled vista on my iMac and therefore KNOW IT HAS NO VIRUSES OR SPYWARE, etc. PLEASE HELP. I LOOK ALL OVER AND I ONLY FIND THINGS FOR PEOPLE WhO ALREADY CAN RUN STUFF, I JUST WANT HElP.

thanks in advance, I have been looking for days.

P.S. Im on a 32bit