Syslinux - Mar 2013 - syslinux.exe, on XP, fails to run on a USB stick

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?

On Sun, Mar 17, 2013 at 8:10 AM, Regid Ichira <regid23 at nt1.in>
wrote:
>   I was trying to set up a USB stick with syslinux.exe, on a
> XP machine.  Had the following problems:
Could you specify the version and where you obtained it (perhaps a
kernel.org mirror)?

-- 
-Gene

Op 17-3-2013 13:10, Regid Ichira schreef:
>    I was trying to set up a USB stick with syslinux.exe, on a
> XP machine.  Had the following problems:
You're not specifying the following things:
* Syslinux version (4.06 ? 5.01?)
* if you're running the console window as administrator or not
* if the filesystem on the USB stick is FAT/FAT32
* if directory '\SYSLINUX' already exists or not (it should)

I'd recommend trying to get syslinux on the device using programs such 
as RUFUS (rufus dos usb) or RMprepUSB (or Unetbootin, YUMI, or whatever) 
and verify that that works.
Afterwards you could still try to run a syslinux.exe installation command.

Bernd