Hi Anthony,
Thank you for your question and I am very sorry about the issue!
First, your computer's hardware is on the weak side to run ARCHICAD, however it should not be the reason for freezing at startup.
From your description, it looks like either it is a licensing issue, or freezing due to failing to load the template. But this part really confuses me:
"...installed version 22, again
everything worked
. The image came up ARCHICAD22 for about 15seconds, then just disappeared and
nothing opened
"
. Did AC22 fail to open as well, or it worked and you could create a new file and start working?
If AC22 fails to start, I can be sure that this is a licensing issue. Something must be preventing ARCHICAD from connecting to the license server. Can you disable all firewall/anti-virus software and try to run ARCHICAD again?
Looking forward to hearing from you soon!
Best regards,
Minh
Minh Nguyen
Technical Support Engineer
GRAPHISOFT