Age of Mythology boot problem

Ok, here goes:

Recently installed AoM and everything went fine...no problems with the install at all, BUT, upon booting the game it goes through the intro movies without a hitch and when it gets to where it "should" start, and it drops to a BSOD exclaiming Page Fault (Ntoskrnl) and That's Alllllll Folks !

All game requirements are exceeded and the Graphics Card is supported as well.... Any ideas ??? I have installed the patch, am trying to run the game as Admin (Why the hell would M$ or anyone else for that matter make running a game under Administrator a requirement anyway ???) I also tried passing Admin Priviledges to the normal user account as well... same same....

Using an older home grown box with the following:

Win2K Pro
256 Meg Ram
Nvidia 256 Meg card
SB Audigy

Any help is appreciated !!!

Many thanks ahead of time.....