on settlers when you try to play the game the mouse just jumps around when trying to set buildings or pathways. I have redownloaded 3 times with same problem on game. I'm using XP on a desktop

I thought I had the same problem :
The game wouldn't start, and when I faffed with the settings I finally got the DOSBox opened with an error message about mouse drivers. I faffed a little more and finally, after a dozen attempts, my firewall/program guard popped up with the permission box...(Comodo Internet Security), and it;s more or less running fine now.
What's you firewall? Do you also have a program guard stopping things running until you give permission?