Updated XP Home, with plenty of ram and a dual core processor.

Installed DOSBox, then installed Carmageddon through it. The game worked fine last night. Then I got the bright idea of editing the config file in the autoexec area. After that, it would open and get as far as the credits image, then shut down.

Symptoms:

1) When the game startup is about to fail, the mouse cursor will still be visible. I can click or hit ctrl-f10 to hide it. Originally, of course, it disappeared on its own as DOSBox begins to start the game. Just before DOSBox shut itself down, the mouse cursor will again be visible. I suppose this is normal behavior.

2) On subsequent installations, Carmageddon will sometimes tell me it cannot create the directory. It does best if I create one for it manually.

So I uninstalled DOSBox, deleted the game files, even deleted the DOSBox config file from my profile, and started all over. Got it to work once, but with no other actions on my own, it stopped again.

I've gone through the whole install/uninstall scenario again twice, and cannot make it work.

Suggestions?