I have also had trouble running MM8 on my XP. It installed fine and then when I try to run it the screen flickers and returns to the desktop. I also have a sound blaster, but I'm not sure that's the problem. I think the problem is with the mm8.icd file because when I look in that there are many errors.
(The errors are below). It says "not enough memory" many times but I have enough memory (256 MB ram). I thought it could be the virtual memory so I raised my virtual memory and it didn't solve the problem. I don't think it's a directX problem though.
TLOSS error
SING error
DOMAIN error
R6028
- unable to initialize heap
R6027
- not enough space for lowio initialization
R6026
- not enough space for stdio initialization
R6025
- pure virtual function call
R6024
- not enough space for _onexit/atexit table
R6019
- unable to open console device
R6018
- unexpected heap error
R6017
- unexpected multithread lock error
R6016
- not enough space for thread data
abnormal program termination
R6009
- not enough space for environment
R6008
- not enough space for arguments
R6002
- floating point not loaded
Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library
Runtime Error!
