I am running XP as well.
What problems have you had w/Dosbox? It looks like it will do what I want, but doesnt look user friendly for the non-computer person.
I have an old ‘98 machine (I think its Win98 on it) that I am hoping to be running Dosbox through, as it is just an old extra computer that I have and can dedicate it to such uses.
These days many technical computer tasks can be learned by just watching a youtube video. Here is one that shows the mounting of the C:\ drive to run your DOSBOX games. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqFQu4ueC8s
Just watch a few videos and you’ll see DOSBOX is pretty easy. All you do basically is mount your games drive, change to that directory, and run the executable for the game (e.g. game.exe). Sometimes if sound doesnt work you need to run the setup.exe or config.exe or whatever “.exe” to configure the sound. I always just choose plain Soundblaster with the defaults settings for it. Then finally if the game is too fast or slow use CTRL-F11 or F12 to adjust it.