E-Prime WinXP evaluation version

[Lngmyers]

In our lab we use the WinXP version of E-Prime in Chinese Windows with
no problems. However, students who aren't associated with the lab need
to use the evaluation version to run their class projects (the lab's too
busy to let them all use the single bedongled lab computer).
Unfortunately, we just discovered that it doesn't work: the evaluation
version of WinXP E-Prime is very unstable in Chinese Windows XP.

Usually (though not always) the program just crashes when you try to run
the experiment (there seem to be no problems in the design stage).
Specifically, we get an extremely vague dialog box saying that the
E-Prime development environment has some sort of error. The dialog box
is in Chinese, meaning that the error is coming from Windows, not
E-Prime. There's no error code or anything to identify it more
specifically.

Exactly the same experiment rewritten for the Win98 evaluation version
works just fine in Chinese Windows 98, but computers with Win98 are hard
to find now that everybody's been brainwashed into "upgrading".

If it's at all relevant, the experiment involves BMP and WAV files...
but another experiment that also involves WAV files works OK (though
this one has fewer WAV files).

So three questions:

(1) Any idea why this happens? Why is the evaluation WinXP version
unstable in Chinese Windows, but the full WinXP version and evaluation
Win98 versions are both stable...?

(2) Any idea how to fix it?

(3) Since I strongly suspect that the problem is unfixable, any
suggestions for free experimental control programs that the students
could use instead of E-Prime? (Psyscope is out, Taiwan being a virtually
Mac-free environment.) We've only used DMDX in the lab, which works
perfectly fine in Chinese Windows, but it's not at all user-friendly.

James Myers
Graduate Institute of Linguistics
National Chung Cheng University
Min-Hsiung, Chia-Yi  621