After following the advice on the Windows 7 thread, I was able to successfully install and play the first two Draculas, and Messenger.
Mummy: Tomb of the Pharoah is 5 years older than the Draculas, and uses an early version of QuickTime 2. It almost certainly uses 16-bit code, which means it won't work on a 64-bit version of Windows outside of an emulator (VirtualPC with Windows 95/98 installed or DOSBox with Windows 3.1 installed). The file repair links would have been for programs that were made for Windows 95. Even if you got the 2001 reissue version of Mummy, the links would have been for a computer with a version of Windows from 12 years ago. If you have the original 1996 version, the links would have been for a computer from 17 years ago.
However, when I attempted to install Mummy Tomb of the Pharaoh, I was not so lucky. Going to the same file on the disk that worked for the other games, I elicited a window that contained links to various file repair sites.
I went to one of these called REGSERVO, and it did a scan and came up with something approaching 2000 errors. (This I don't understand because the weekly file scan my machine does indicates I have zero errors.)
This is what I consider a type of malware. It claims you have all these errors, when in fact there are none. Regservo may have been a legitimate registry cleaner at the time the game was released (1996 or possibly 2001), but it clearly isn't any more. If you do a Google search for Regservo, you'll see what I mean.
Anyway, when I clicked on the "Fix Errors" button, instead of fixing anything, I got a window asking me to register.
Yes they want your money. There's nothing wrong with your computer -- at least there wasn't before you ran Regservo. If you need a registry cleaner, Ccleaner is free.
If you have a System Restore Point from not long before you installed Regservo, you might want to go back to it.
Being at a dead end, I gave up, deciding to come here to Gameboomers, to look for advice. As soon as I returned to my desktop, I noticed that REGSERVO had placed an ikon there. When I went on-line to come here, I found that my Google homepage had been replaced by the Ask homepage. This probably has no practical effect, but totally unanticipated stuff like this seems to be the norm whenever I try to download stuff or work with "techie" things on the machine.
Generally it's a bad idea to try to access software from websites provided by 17-year-old game discs (or even 12-year-old game discs). The original site is probably not there anymore and who knows what sort of company has taken over their website. A game disc should include everything you need to play the game -- assuming it's playable on your version of Windows.
Often I have downloaded things only to have them vanish somewhere in the bowels of my machine.
If you didn't change the download location, your downloads will be in your Downloads folder. Click your Start button, then Computer. You should see where to click to find your downloads folder. Here's a picture.
http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/6479/win7librariesdownloads.pngSo what I am asking is there anyplace I can get detailed Mouse-click by Mouse-click walk-thrus for these kind of issues?
No. We had something pretty close with Inferno's XP website.
The fatal problems I have with virtually all instructions is that they tell me WHAT I need to do, but they don't tell me HOW to do it.
You'll have to ask for more detailed instructions on a per game basis in a forum like this one.