How to diagnose a program that won't launch?

I haven't yet tried to contact the manufacturer, and don't know if the manufacturer supposts this program or not. But here's the lowdown:

I run Win XP Pro on my computer. I have a pinball game, "Slamtilt" (www.encoresoftware.com) which I can install but it won't launch.

The reason I'm asking here now is that in the software environment I had six months to a year ago, this program was installed and working properly in Win XP Pro. For some obscure reason I no longer remember it was uninstalled a long time ago, and I wanted to reinstall it. But there is a conflict of some sort now that didn't exist when the program was previously running.

One thing I do know is that when I recently installed Unreal 2003 it told me my video card driver was out of date, and prompted me to download and install the new one (which I did). I mention this because when I try to run Slamtilt pinball I get a blank, black screen. When I ESC from it, my monitor resolution has been changed from 1024 x 768 to 800 x 600. So I don't know if the video card driver may be involved in my problem.

The CD has a 2001 copyright date, which is pretty recent. I've gone into the the Slamtilt.exe properties and tried setting it to run in compatibility modes for Win 98 SE or Win ME/2k, but that hasn't helped me.

I'm certainly no software engineer (though I have a freind who is). Is there a way to set up a log file that will record what happens when I try to launch the program so that it may be possible to figure out what's keeping it from running? Or is there a simpler way to tackle this problem?

Its annoying because pinball games for PCs are hard to find. I'm 43 y.o., and I still like pinball. I have a couple games from Sierra that run, and another program or two with several tables. But of all of them, Slamtilt is the most exciting of the pinball games I have.

Any advice would be welcome. I've reached a point where I don't know what to do, other than ask other people for advice.

Thanks for your time.

 

what I would do: I would try a diferent driver set and see what happens, if you can remember what drivers you were using when it last ran sucessfully try those.

try that and let us know what happens.