As something to play with I grabbed a fresh machine - This had Windows XP SP2 On, Trust AntiVirus with machine fully updated. In copied across the King Server 1.1 10 user limit - thats the one on My link...
I went through and Set up the server as you would, such as ODBC, !Setup.txt and so forth. I never installed SQL Server, I re-used my exsiting SQL Server on another machine. The Server as per plan started up fine. As I mentioned if you shove on the 70 Player Fix (as they called it) the Server wont start up at all. I then Shoved across the Unlimited Hack as posted by NMA - again the server booted up etc.. Lastly I tried the Cruel Dragon thing and this also booted...
My Only advice I can give to you is you MUST have the wrong set of files there, one wrong DLL or not set up right and the server wont run at all - this was proven by the 70 player fix (first one I posted) where it just flashed up and went away..Best Idea - start again from scratch...