I have had a LOT of trouble running Myst Masterpiece on my XP Pro laptop. Even on my Windows 7 Desktop there have been some issues.

Now I've followed all the steps and updated the video drivers and the Quicktime stuff and finally am able to play it but I can't save. If I try to save it opens the box and and I can name and choose location but then the whole thing freezes up when I hit save. I have to restart my computer after this. Then the save file is there but if I try to load it when I go back into Myst it locks up again.

I'm not trying to be picky but in a puzzle-type game like Myst you have to be able to save the game!

Do you have read-write-execute permissions to the directory you installed it to?

Here's my nightmare - I'm computer knowledgeable enough to be dangerous so be patient with me...

The Read-Only property box has been filled in green. I can remove the shading from the box (by clicking it making it go to a check mark and finally an empty box or back to the green shaded box) but if I remove all marks from the box - it doesn't stick and the next time I open the properties tab the shaded in box is back again. So I went online and searched for a way to fix this. After wading through the "Microsoft has done this on purpose for your own good and you should not fix it - blah... blah..." I came to posts on turning off file sharing and taking ownership of the files. I did that and I set it so I have permission for everything under the permissions. And these check marks stayed but the shaded box in the "read only" permission field also remained. I tried Myst to see the saved mode worked yet - but alas - it has not.

Now I'm not sure if this is because I have yet to fully allow permissions and that I have to do it in some other way or if it is because of Myst. However, please not that ALL the files on my computer have that green box checked and other games (including others from Gog) have run, saved and loaded just fine.

It looks like you almost have it right...
Your permissions tab is displaying the rights for the Administrators group. If your account is in the Administrators group, you should also have those rights, BUT some times it gets wonky and administrators aren't always treated as such. Add your user account to the list and then give yourself full permissions that way.

You could also use the CACLS command to give rights through CMD
run CMD as Administrator (shift, right-click the CMD icon), and type:

CACLS "C:\your\myst\folder" /E /P yourUserNameHere:F

Obviously change the installation folder and your user name to what they should be.

Okay - I finally figured out how to do this step and it worked (sorta). Now I can save the game without crashing it but I can't load the game without crashing. I've tried doing it from the initial book screen and from after starting the game. If I click the saved game file it starts the game but it's not the saved game (it just starts from the beginning without anything being saved). I'm noticing that the save file is only 1kb in size - which seems wrong too.

Any further ideas? I appreciate your help Dusty. I'm really frustrated in that I purchased this game from GOG.com and it has been one issue after another (install an older version of Quick Time, update video drivers, update Direct X, reload Myst, adjust video settings, etc - which is funny as other gog.com games have not required these extra steps). I haven't rated the game yet as I don't want to unfairly rate them if there is a simple fix for this.... I really wished GOG would come out with a patch or something to make this work or at least acknowledge the issue!