Freeze at Splash Screen

*I have solved this issue*

I Installed a Fresh copy of Rome: Total War, then patched to 1.3 > 1.5, and then installing EB to the correct directory which the RTW .exe is located. After I load up the EB Play - Single Player .exe the initial splash screen will load and then will do nothing. After a great deal of time elapses I bring up the task manager to reveal the program is not responding. I have poured over the stickies and posts and been unable to find a similar situation. I have reinstalled both RTW and EB four times now. I have also tried running the game with the no movies and windowed option to no avail. I have also tried re-downloading the mod with again no results.

Here is the result of my validation check:
==========
Changed file: .\data\descr_arrow_trail_effects_final.txt (expected checksum 4e50ed8c1a6625c101cea0c71062c94f, got de783fafcadbd4caa710d79edb38a59a)
Changed file: .\data\descr_surface_fire.txt (expected checksum 6e82d50b514e70b8a2c6accbd39680f6, got c2ecf65971bfb7c135e62a23d0421f83)
Changed file: .\data\text\caesar_in_gaul_wip_5_regions_and_settlement_names.txt (expected checksum c08c87669b79ae4c5c1c7dda8f8683c5, got 893c29ac0fee8ca8f029bc1d086da1da)
Changed file: .\eb\data\descr_battle_map_lighting_and_fog_control.txt (expected checksum cb93a428e536cfa294ff85bf1d9ceca1, got 23942befd1eebbd7b829f750745c3081)
Changed file: .\eb\data\world\maps\battle\custom\279 bc - battle of ausculum\description.txt (expected checksum e54e6f6ba0c7cbb4eb7a2016e2f17842, got 0337a879748a757b21957959beb00873)
Changed file: .\eb\mp game edu backup\map.rwm (expected checksum 1c90eb5933e8e610f00bdd692ca60048, got ca3d6899906a707189b700241a6e2797)

My System Information:
Operating System: Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.070227-2254)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: NVIDIA
System Model: NF68
BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 2046MB RAM
Page File: 461MB used, 3476MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
GPU: NVIDIA 8800 GTS

Thanks in advance for any help.

Edit: I have found this post: https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showt...32#post1870332
but I do not appear to have a preferences folder in "O:\Program Files\Rome Total War\EB\preferences-> player" as described in the post. Am I supposed to make the folder and add the text file? This leads me to believe I am missing more than the player.txt file.

Further Edit: I found a preferences folder in the Rome Total War directory and copy and pasted it into the RTW/EB directory and solved the problem. Sorry to both anyone.