Is there a way I can play a Windows 95 CD-ROM game on a windows XP computer?

This might help.

Thanks heaps jp, I’ll give it a go

Unfortunately that didn’t work, after following the instructions when I double clicked on the icon it changed to 256 colour but then a message came up saying the program has encountered a problem and needs to close, send error report/don’t send… what can I do about that?

If its a Dos/Win95 game, you could try Dosbox. I’ve had good luck with that. Also some games will play with VDMSound. Another option is to create a virtual machine, with something like VMWare and play within that.

If it is a Win 95 game. It may actually run in DOS. Google DOSBox. It is a DOS emulator. And I use to know of a program that would slow down you PC by eating up CPU cycles. Something like that may help. I’m on my iPhone so you will have to Google for links.

What’s the game?

Well I’ve got Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure and Earthworm Jim

(and I really don’t understand how to use that Dosbox, I’m sorry)

Earthworm Jim was a great game. I have an old cd-rom myself and never had much luck getting it to work.
Those games MAY be what is considered Abandonware. And you may be able to download other versions with an emulator to make them work. There are many Abandonware sites. Just do some Googling and search through them.

That might be your best bet. Trying to make that old cd work aging could be a challenge.

If you can get your hands on an old, reject PC, it might be worth setting it up just for this purpose (although I wouldn’t recommend you network it at all – modern viruses will run through Win95 like a hot knife).