[syslinux] syslinux.exe, on XP, fails to run on a USB stick

[Regid Ichira]

  I was trying to set up a USB stick with syslinux.exe, on a 
XP machine.  Had the following problems:

1. Tried:
  1.1 from XP native cmd shell:

      E:\>syslinux\syslinux.exe --directory /syslinux --install
                                --force --mbr --active e:

  1.2 and a similar command from cygwin.

  where e: is the USB stick.

  With cygwin I got a segmentation fault.
  With XP native cmd shell I got a window saying the syslinux.exe 
  had encountered a problem and has to be closed.  I can't interpert
  the full error report.  Probably CPU registers contents and
  similar information.
    In both cases I also had syslinux.exe not obeying the
  --directory directive, insisting to put ldlinux.sys at the root of
  the USB stick.


2. http://ioctl.org/unix/debian/, which has no date but probably few
  years old by now, claim that

       XP doesn't let a 16-bit executable read or write the boot
       sector of a USB memory stick. This is the case even if you
       run with local administration privileges.

       If you search for the error report that SYSLINUX gives you,
       which I reproduce here so that this page might be found and
       indexed: ERROR 3246: Boot sector read failed, then you'll
       see that you aren't alone in that situation. Several people
       report the problem; no solutions are offered.

  Is the list experience different?