Rivets...Adobe CS4 (all) installed ok without virtual machine etc, and have you tried Control Panel 'Troubleshooting - find and fix problems/run programs for previous versions etc? Not sure what it's doing to the registry, but it sure as hell works, and quick - made a lot of xp things operate fine...
This could be a first/second, for what it was Windaes 95 wasn't bad for its time. This is way ahead of Vista (and so it should be)