I’m glad that you found a solution! Still, I would like to mention another one (which has already been mentioned, actually). Perhaps somebody finds this interesting:
I had lots and lots of problems with old (DOS) games as well, and I almost gave up on them completely. But then I decided to try one last chance and installed FreeDOS.
And it works!

Moreover, it works perfectly!!! Now I can finally play “System Shock”, “Supaplex”, various old Legend’s interactive fiction (like “Spellcasting”), and pretty much everything else again!
All in all, I’m so pleased with FreeDOS that now I would like to recommend it to just about everyone!

Yes, it is a bit annoying to reformat the PC and set things up again, but in the end, I think it’s well worth it.
Cheers!