The topic says it all: my Master of Magic locks up when I click or press a key to skip the intro screens. I've also tried the unofficial patch, which allows me to get through into the character choice where it freezes on the "generating the worlds" section.
Windows Vista, single core Pentium 3.2ghz with an nvidia 7800gs card.
UAC turned off, installed as administrator.
any help would be appreciated!

I can't believe I didn't try this before coming to the forums. I'm getting lazy in my old age!
As for the freezing on "generating worlds" I found that by altering the scaling in Dosbox I could fix that... at 2x scaling, of any type, it locks up. At 3x it works fine. Not sure why that'd be, but I'm just glad to have MoM back after all these years.
Thanks for your help.

I have been experiencing the same issue trying to skip the intro animations (Windows 7 Ultimate, 64-bit). I've tried all sorts of configurations but oddly enough, none were necessary. I simply started using the ESC button to skip the intro animations and it's never frozen on me since. I find this solution preferable to downgrading game settings or disabling Windows features. Just FYI