You should carry out the various maintenance activities on the frequency we originally discussed.

[UPDATE][SOLVED]

Phew...Before writing this post, I seriously hesitated doing so. The solution was so unbelievably simple and strange, that I just couldn't believe my eyes when it worked, and I was really doubtful you guys will ever believe me.

For some reason, despite having full administrative privileges on this XP user, the game needed to be run on a different administrator user. Yes - that's it, all I did was run the game under a newly created user, with identical authorisations and privileges to this one (but under which the game consistently got stuck on the main menu).

Can someone please explain this weird case? Why, despite having all the administrator privileges, Myst IV: Revelation refuses to run under this user?

Still, I'd like to thank everyone on this thread who helped me, namely: Heimdall G, LynComeLately and nanoukmetal. You guys really demonstrated great patience and care, and for that I'm extremely grateful.

At least this simple and minor problem brought about great improvements to my rig: a pretty awesome graphics chipset (now I'm able to run all those cool modern games), and a system pure of viruses and spyware (at least I hope so). Again, thanks a lot.

Oh, and the game was simply wonderful, definitely worth the trouble [=

Wow! That's fantastic!

Thanks so much for coming back and telling us.

Oh, and glad you enjoyed the game!