Hello.
Like a small niche of gamers, I to have been taken in by the lure of ancient, dinosaur-esque PC games and the hours of fun they once and still hold.
I research these old games, trying to find out as much as i can about them, and seeing if i can get them to run on my HP Pavilion a1540n with Windows XP Media Center Edition. 
I have had much success.
One day while browsing our good friend Wikipedia, I came across a link for a page that discussed an obscure, old game for the PC called CRITICAL PATH.  I clicked. 
Like all Wikipedia pages discussing PC/MAC games, in the left corner of the screen it gives details and specs of the game in question.
Wikipedia has always been a good source of correct information, but this I had to test for myself.  in the SPECS column, it reads that to play this game, you MUST HAVE WINDOWS 3.X INSTALLED ON YOUR COMPUTER. "Does not run on newer versions of Windows, ('95 OR above)"
Here is a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Path_%28video_game%29
This is wrong.  I have this exact game installed on said HP computer with said operating system and it works grandly.
Any who have tried and failed to get this game working in XP will understand the meaning of the CRITICAL OVERFLOW comment in my title.
The game's setup file would reliably crash out with this message: "Critical Path setup 2.00: Overflow" and you'd be rocketed back to the desktop.
The solution to this problem is so simple, I can't believe no one posted it yet. (I search these things regularly)
JUST DO THIS:
1. insert cd into your drive
2. go into your MY COMPUTER
3. right click on your cd drive where C.P. (the game's cd) is inserted.
4. go --> explore
5. find the setup.exe file.
6. right click on that and go PROPERTIES
7. in the resulting window, click the tab that says "Compatibility".
8. click on the first text box and go WINDOWS 95 compatibility
9. below, check 256 COLORS and RUN IN 640x480 pixels.

Click apply and exit out.  double click on the setup file.  NO MORE OVERFLOW!!  :)
Choose your installation directory and then choose the quality of the still images for the game (4 bit, 8 bit, or 24 bit)
In the text box below, it will tell you which "bit" will work best with your current configuration. Good.  Install that game!!
It installs and it then shows you a short Quicktime v1.1 video of the game.  ***This game WILL install a very old version of Quicktime on your computer.  i don't see a problem with this because on my computer, it installed the old version in a different folder with different system file names and DID NOT overwrite my Quicktime version 10 or so.  that is good***  All of my games that require a newer version of Quicktime still run, but I CAN'T be responsible for YOUR configuration if a problem shows up, but I never had one.

I digress.

If all goes well with the video and sound, then you're on easy street.
click on the resulting CRITPATH.EXE file to start the game.
Got an error message?
No matter. change the exe's compatibility to exactly that of SETUP.exe
(win 95, 256 colors, 640x480)
Click apply and then okay.
Double click on the .exe and the game should run perfectly.

(if the screen is too small for you, change your resolution on your monitor.  (JUST THE RESOLUTION!! (ex. 1280x1024 to 800x600) DO NOT CHANGE THE COLOUR BITRATE!! {32 bit to 16 bit} THIS WILL MESS UP YOUR GAME, AS THE SETUP FILE INSTALLED THE GAME WITH YOUR PRESENT COLOR SCHEME IN MIND.)

Have fun!