“Failed” means that the driver was not able to create a new DirectDrawCreateEx instance. The driver is trying to use the driver ID. This is a known bug in DirectDraw and cannot be fixed.
The same is true of DirectDrawCreator and DirectDrawCreator. DirectDrawCreator creates a DirectDrawCreateEx, but DirectDrawCreator throws it away.
A known bug in DirectDraw and DirectDrawCreator. DirectDrawCreator throws it away. DirectDrawCreator creates an existing DirectDrawCreateEx and throws it away.