[Tipstaff]

Fortuna (and probably Asimov), what region is your game from? US, Europe? The problem your describing could be caused due to incorrect regional settings. Make sure you have your language/region set to whatever region the game was made in. (in XP, and assuming the game is from the US = Control Panel, Regional and Language Options, choose English (United States) for the first box, and the lower box as United States). Note though that the cracked exe could be based off of the European game, and it could screw up if you use it with the US release. (I've seen this happen with a number of games). You might wanna try another cracked exe just to see if it fixes the problem.

As for XP SP2, I know that the game works on my end, so I can't see that being a problem unless you have the Data Execution Protection (DEP) set to protect for all programs and services. (Default is essential programs/services only).