This also happens with real hardware. I bought a second hand xp laptop just the other day, hoping it can avoid the problem that the game freezes randomly with no reason on windows 10, but turns out I can't even play the game unless I load a previous save. And if I click on option, it makes the game freeze and the task manager will show it as "not responding"...
I've tried deleted the .ini file (both ra2.ini and ra2md.ini), change the compatibility of the executable file to windows 95, run with administrator account, repair the game and reinstall the game entirely, nothing's working.
I assume EA changed the game files to suit the new OSes (even though it's still a failure) and accidentally broke the game on XP. Hopefully they will notice this and fix it asap.
