Windows 7: Need help installing Windows 95-98 XP game on Windows 7 XP mode

I own a Dell Inspiron. Honestly, that is about all I know about it. However, I just upgraded my Windows 7 Home Premium x64bit to Windows 7 Professional x64bit. Upon discovering the XP mode, I got excited and purchased The Game of Life CD ROM. I played the game a lot as a kid and I loved it. But something is not right. I can get the game to download in XP mode but when I try to run the game, XP mode freezes. After shutting down and restarting XP mode, I get this error message:

"Application Error: D:\LIFE\life.exe
The instruction at 0041a65c referenced memory at 00000000
The memory could not be read from

Click on OK to terminate the application"

Can anyone help please? I would really, really appreciate it.
Thanks.

Someone referenced this error to a faulty CD Rom... have you had any issues running another game with this CD Rom? what about a movie, music video or the likes?

If its not a faulty CD Rom, what I would do is. uninstall the game completely... restart the computer... insert the cd... do not let it run but click on "Open/Browse folder"... right click on the "Setup.exe" file and click on "Run on Compatibility mode" and follow the instructions.

If this does not work, you may be able to download Windows XP Virtual mode and instal it in it.

Well I've never had any errors running anything on my laptop before. And I spoke with an IT guy and he said something about memory on the Virtual XP? There was a way I could fix it, but he wanted $100 and a $10 game is not worth a $100 fix. I was just wondering if anyone knew how to fix it without costing me a lot of money. And I tried what you said, but it didn't work.

Thanks though.

Did you played that game with the laptop before? Did you check if your laptop meets or exceeds the game requirements? I would tell you to update your video and audio drivers but I don't believe this has anything to do with it, although, it never hurts

Yeah, I would not invest 100 bucks to play a 10 game so... that is that!

First of all, why use "XP mode" at all? What happens if you run the game normally on the real Windows 7 directly? Compatibility settings may help, with WinXP or Win98 maybe.

Remember that "XP mode" is just a fake marketing name for a virtual machine, and most times virtual machines sucks when running games. Use it for gaming only as a last resort when nothing else works.