Sorry, I should have used more accurate wording - I downloaded and extracted the game as-is. When I referred to my XP machine, I meant that the game functions fine there, including the CD check, but since I actually have said CD in the drive when using that machine (currently several states away from me), it works. Specifically, I followed these steps:
1) Downloaded Ascendancy from this website, Abandonia.com....I've never found it available for download anywhere else.
2) Extracted it into a new folder, C:\OLDGAMES
3) Downloaded and installed DOSBOX 0.73.
4) Ran DOSBOX, and obeyed the
excellent wiki-help guide to mount C:\OLDGAMES as my local C: Drive. I followed the guide verbatim, except for substituting ASCEND wherever the example guide uses TESTDRIV, and substituting ASCEND.EXE in place of TDGCA.EXE.
5) Followed the wiki's instructions through C: to C:\ASCEND, the directory storing ASCEND.EXE.
5) Tried to run Ascend.exe, and it functioned perfectly, right up until the part where it checks for the CD, and since it did not find said CD, it dumped me right back to my C:\> prompt without any opportunity to ignore or skip it.