T.Woods 2004 problemo

I got a copy of this game from my Mrs. a short while ago. Problem is, it won't work. I more than meet the needs of the game, but I get errors during loading.
I'm not pressing anything or touching anything, but I still get 'em. I took it to the store where it was bought, and they tested it... loaded fine. Their explanation was that it may have been the fact that I was running Windows 2000 / NT 5.0. In the lad's technical jargon at the store, he said it was "poo" (yes, he really said poo) for running games.
Could it be? Could my version of windows prevent me from playing this game? I have many other games that work as well as they can on this machine... any ideas why THIS one won't?