Re: Spore won't start on a Windows XP vm

Sorry if I'm a bit late to the table. If you're using VirtualBox for this VM, you may want to consider trying VMWare Player instead. I've had tons of issues with the game in VirtualBox (including  probably-SecuROM-related stuff, not unlike like this issue if my memory serves me), but since switching to VMWare, I've had no such further issues. Performance is often better, too. The only catch is that VMWare Player doesn't support a macOS host OS (or atleast didn't last I checked), but if you're on Windows (or Linux, probably?), it should be fine...there is VMWare Fusion for macOS, but it's quite expensive (for comparison, Player is free for non-commercial use), and I have no idea if it behaves at all the same as VMWare Player does with regards to Spore.