I downloaded “Age of Mythology: The Golden Gift” from the Microsoft website, but whenever I attempt to run the game a message appears saying “Base product Age of Mythology Golden Gift will not run”. What does this message mean? The computer is running Windows XP.

This message could be due to a few different factors. The first potential cause is you do not have the full retail version of Age of Mythology installed on the computer. Age of Mythology: The Golden Gift is simply an add-on (expansion pack) for the Age of Mythology game, rather than a game in itself, so you need the full version of Age of Mythology installed on the computer to run this expansion pack. The second potential cause of this problem is the expansion pack cannot start the base Age of Mythology product. The most likely reason for this is some incompatibility. Assuming you can run the Age of Mythology game by itself, you may need to install the latest updates for Age of Mythology. On the Microsoft download site it notes that “You will need to install the latest Age of Mythology update for the campaign to work properly”. So, you should re-visit the Microsoft Downloads website to download the latest update for Age of Mythology and install this update on the computer.