I am having this problem only in Pirates'! Gold. It says I don't have extra memory...emm or xm (or whatever?). Can I config. the DOS prompt? and how? I am avoiding using DosBox as I'm not familiar with it :angry:

I know taht you don't want to hear it but... use DosBox.

It's simple:

1) open DosBox
2) type "mount c: c:\pirates\" (change "c:\pirates\" with path to your pirates folder). Enter.
3) type "c:". Enter.
4) now just start the game like you would do it in command prompt ("pirates.exe" or however the *.exe files is named)

if the game runs slow use CTRL+F12 to speed it up or CTRL+F11 to slow it down. ALT+ENTER for full screen.

note: if picture does not appear right when you set it to full screen open dosbox.conf with notepad and change

fullfixed=false
fullresolution=800x600

to

fullfixed=true
fullresolution=640x480 (or the resolution that fits the game best)

enjoy! ;)

With DOSBox you can configure whether HMS or EMS will be available for each game. No idea about plain WinXP, but little wonder that a certain DOS game doesn't work there, of course.

Yeah, the best solution is get familiar with DOSBox. It's (1)not that hard to use and (2)overcomes every problem with running DOS games in XP that in some cases are unresolvable. Your problem is unresolvable running the game in XP. Your other option is to make a DOS partition on your hard drive and load FreeDos or something on it. But trust me, DOSBox is easier than that.

However, I remember Pirates Gold giving me some problems too. I don't think they were OS related. More like I had no idea what I was doing.

Grand Dad, you might want to refer to Official FAQ? on DosBox page.

You'll get used to it quickly, and in case of any problems there are always the frontends.

Yeah... I couldn't be bothered getting too much into Dosbox so I got Dfend frontend... brilliant and full of good features that makes it really easy to set up your game with full support ;)
Go for it and you will not worry about XP crap errors anymore!!