Hey Fry_guy,
Welcome to the forums!
Anyhow, the only way I could think you would come right in this regard is to contact the hardware supplier, or at the very least, give us the machine manufacturer and model number, then we could see if we can be of help.
Other suggestion, try installing and running the software in compatibility mode. How you do that is (I have never done it from a cd, so don't know if it will work, if not, copy the cd to your HDD first) Right click on the setup file, Choose Properties. Go to the Compatability tab, and choose Windows Xp Service Pack 3, if that gives issues, try Service pack 2. Also choose "Run as Administrator" near the bottom.
Once the program is installed, open Windows Explorer, and browse to the location of the install. Do exactly the same as the above on the application launch file.
Hope this works. If not, one could always try to run it in XP Mode(Different than compatibility mode), but as far as I know you only have it on Windows 7 Professional and up, so you would have to upgrade your operating system.
Please let me know if you came right, and if not, I will see if I can help.