serious MBF problem

[mlin]

can't even start it at all.

'failed trying to allocate DOS near pointers'.

[Grazza]

This is a well-known problem with XP and DOS games, discussed many times in these forums. With the original exes, disabling sound solves the problem (and some people find that sound emulation works OK; others don't). I don't know whether there is a way round it with Boom or MBF though.

PrBoom and Eternity are two Windows ports that have support for most MBF features.

[Julian]

For MBF wads, I'd recommand using Eternity. It's very compatible with it (up to the point it can play demos) and has the advantage of featuring a native windows version.