Images dont display in SDL, program returns 0

No image functions that I use in SDL seem to work, the program runs and ends without an error and none of the checks I put into my code show up anything (my STDout file is empty).

The simplest example is this section in my initialization function:

#include "SDLinit.h"


bool SDLinit()
{

    if( SDL_Init( SDL_INIT_EVERYTHING ) == -1 )
    {
        return false;
    }
    screenSurface = SDL_SetVideoMode( screenWidth, screenHeight, screenBPP, SDL_SWSURFACE );
    if( screenSurface == NULL )
    {
        return false;
    }

    SDL_WM_SetCaption( "Game", NULL );

    SDL_Surface* icon = SDL_LoadBMP("icon.bmp");
    SDL_WM_SetIcon(icon, NULL);

    return true;
}

But none of my other functions work either. If necessary I can try uploading the source code but I have a fair bit of code over several files and I dont want to just post a huge wall of text. Can anyone help me out here? I have included the files in the same folder as my .exe and they are definitely the right file type.