Followed THF Player guide to the letter - all but getting the .rar of Underfoot, as it just failed halfway through the download. So I got Underfoot elsewhere.
Tried playing from the THFDownloader.exe after patching with it, and I get "GUI XML error"

Used search function here and tried everything in all the threads with the same issue to no avail. Here's what I've tried -
- THFDownloader.exe relocated in (D:\Games\everquest)
- THFDownloader.exe + eqgame.exe both set via compatibility to "run as administrator"
- Renamed "default" UI folder to "default.bak" and had the THF repatch that
- Found a fresh Underfoot default UI folder elsewhere and replaced with it (THF then repatched about 10 files into that)
- Tried running from eqgame.exe - shortcut (with the patchme addendum); it worked? Ish? But took me back to dial up days loading time and didn't load to character select, just perpetual loading screen. Logged in with the THF.org registration. Trying to load via THF.exe still pops up an error.
I'll confirm a few things -
- Fresh everquest folder untouched for THF
- eqhost.txt set to: Host=login.thehiddenforest.org:5999, account created here.
- Running Windows 8.1 (kill me) on a laptop with awful specs (i3, 4GB Ram, integrated graphics card) but I've played Live on it before back when they did free to play and it ran fine, and of course it runs Shards of Dalaya no problem (but we use an older client)
- UIErrors.txt did at one point have messages but now comes up with nothing since I fiddled with the default UI folder, as in no errors to report even after I get another "GUI XML error" pop-up
You're probably going to tell me to keep trying to download the .rar of Underfoot from the playerguide but I wanted to make sure there's nothing else I should be trying first. Hopefully I gave you all the info you needed, cheers!